Carina

trauma meme and vent blog • main account: @kissingtotell

[pack-of-rats-archive]

Time to create a longer DNI:

Blogs that post th*nspo, s*lf h*rm, and exclusively N/SFW blogs.

Non-traumagenic systems. We're not here to argue, but if you aren't traumagenic then this space is not for you. This is a trauma blog.

People who don't believe DID is real.

People who support subs like r/DIDCringe or r/FakeDisorderCringe.

"Narcissistic abuse" blogs, aka people who are ableist against cluster b disorders.

Transphobes/ TERFs.

Blank blogs with no description or posts.

[nicoledollanganger-songs]

Visit Original Link

Jeremy Nicole Dollanganger

shared with me by a friend after someone else found it on an inactive blog, originally posted in 2015 with the caption "Throw backs with Nicole". no other info about the song.

[nicoledollanganger-songs]

Visit Original Link

The Curtains and the Dead Nicole Dollanganger

there's no doctor that can save you now the curtains are drawn, there is nobody left they've all pulled up the sheets and put them over your head a dark horse came where you slept to collect the twenty-one grams of the soul you had left that's all back to the ground

[nicoledollanganger-songs]

Visit Original Link

Gross Nicole Dollanganger

under the spell of the waning moons hot enough outside to puke the sad songs of crying coyotes passing through your hollow bones i've always clung to like wind dying in between the trees the fields we stain like our bed sheets white-knuckle through the pain of our hybrid blood dripping when we catch it

[nicoledollanganger-songs]

Visit Original Link

Head Wound Holes Nicole Dollanganger

your stare hits the bone, your voice cracks open my skull making head wound holes for the mice of the apartment next door to crawl in and chew my soul

i've died up there a thousand times hoping you would find me and just take me home, you'd just take me home

[librarycards]

is there anything out there that talks about coping with grief from physical side effects from psych drugs that have harmed a persons body? I am dealing with medical issues caused by medications I was put on and while they arent "life threatening" they have done such significant damage i feel like i cant keep going. I want to try and find something to keep holding on to life but i feel so alone and hopeless and like its my fault for not going off my meds sooner

i'm sorry you're going through this, anon - while i am in a very different situation, i am also dealing with worsening disability resulting from Mad/psych-related stuff, and it's incredibly painful. please know that it is not your fault, especially since you were put on these meds likely without being notified of the possible side effects. you deserve to feel happy, hopeful, and safe.

here are some resources on tardive dyskinesia, one of the most common serious side effects of antipsychotic use.

here is a detailed, wrenching interview with Brook Siem about going off of antidepressants.

here is a discussion of the side effects of lithium, especially in the context of carceral psychiatric institutions

r/antipsychiatry also seems to have some threads on the subject. YMMV - it's reddit after all - but worth checking out.

perhaps @trans-axolotl also has recs?

[schizopositivity]

could you share any more under-talked about symptoms of schizophrenia, like executive dysfunction?

I've actually been meaning to make a post like this but keep forgetting (lol that's a symptom). As a disclaimer, not everyone with schizophrenia has every one of these symptoms, and people can have a lot of these symptoms and not have schizophrenia (if they don't have the psychotic symptoms). Not all of these symptoms are seen as diagnostic criteria, some have just been observed to be very common in people with schizophrenia. (I'm excluding hallucinations and delusions because they are more well known)

• Paranoia: a pattern of behavior where a person feels distrustful and suspicious of other people and acts accordingly. This can go hand in hand with hallucinations and delusions.

• Disorganized thoughts: this can mean a lot of things. It can be not having a linear train of thought, having incoherent thoughts, thought blocking, general disorganized thoughts. (It can be hard to define because it is often hard to describe for the person experiencing it).

• Disorganized speech: this is often a result of the disorganized thoughts. This can include loose associations like rapidly shifting between topics with no connections between the topics. Perseveration, which is repeating the same things over and over again. Made up words that only have meaning to the speaker. Use of rhyming words without meaning. Word salad, which is when cognitive disorganization is severe, it can be nearly impossible to understand what the person is saying, but the person speaking doesn't know they aren't making sense.

• Trouble concentrating: lack of concentration, switching from topic to topic, not being able to focus on one thing. (This is pretty self explanatory).

• Movement disorders: catatonia can be repetitive non goal directed movements. It can also be complete or partial immobility, mutism, vacant staring, and rigidity. Although not a symptom, tardive dyskinesia can occur in schizophrenia as a result of antipsychotics medication.

• Anhedonia: a loss of pleasure in activities that the person once enjoyed. Or the inability to feel pleasure at all.

• Atypical or non-existent emotional expression: Flat or blunted affect is an inability to show emotions characterized by a lack of facial expression, a monotone voice, and no hand gestures. On the other hand people can also have inappropriate affect, where the emotional expression doesn't align with typical reactions or even the person's own feelings.

• Alogia: when someone speaks less, says fewer words or only speaks in response to others. This can be a result of disorganized thoughts.

• Social withdrawal: avoiding people and activities that someone once enjoyed. Not actively being present during social situations. Can progress to total isolation.

• Avolition: a severe lack of initiative to accomplish purposeful tasks. This is a big reason some people with schizophrenia can't work/go to school, can't do chores, and can't keep up with their basic hygiene. Even if the person wants to do these tasks, it may be extremely difficult or impossible for them to get themselves to start or complete the task due to the lack of motivation.

• Executive dysfunction: a behavioral symptom that disrupts a person's ability to manage their own thoughts, emotions and actions. This can include focussing too much on one thing, being easily distracted, spacing out, struggling to switch between tasks, problems with impulse control and trouble starting difficult or boring tasks. Several schizophrenia symptoms fit into the umbrella of executive dysfunction, so when researching you will either see the specific ones listed out, or just simply described as executive dysfunction.

• Alexithymia: significant challenges in recognizing, expressing, and describing one's own emotions.

• Poor memory: this can include working memory deficits like trouble planning, organizing, and carrying out daily chores such as running errands, because it requires mentally formulating a “to do” list organized by time and location. Many people with schizophrenia also report trouble with their episodic memory, which means they have trouble recollecting things in the context of their place and time. (A lot of sources say "trouble with memory" is a symptom but they don't specify).

• Trouble with decision making: people with schizophrenia have been shown to have trouble with decision making due to a decline in the understanding and reasoning aspects of it.

• Sensory processing deficits: this has been widely reported in schizophrenia, and include impairments in visual processing, auditory processing, olfactory and sensorimotor systems. This can lead to having strong positive or negative reactions to sensory information.

• Sleep troubles: though disturbed sleep isn't included in the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, it is still a significant problem that up to 80% of people with the condition experience. People with schizophrenia may have various sleep problems, including insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness, and trouble with consistent sleep routines.

• Anosognosia: also called "lack of insight," is a symptom that impairs a person's ability to understand and perceive their illness. This is a big reason people with schizophrenia may refuse to get, or stay with treatment.

[sapphuric-acid]

Hello internet, I wanna share my experience with a less-talked-about medication side effect.

Tardive dyskinesia (TD) is a neurological condition that involves involuntary movement of the face, neck, limbs, or trunk muscles. It is broasly defined as a tic disorder, like Tourette's. It's caused by the use of certain medications, and is most often associated with first-generation antipsychotics. In fact, according to The Mayo Clinic, at least 20% of people using first-gen antipsychotics develop TD. However, it can also be caused by other types of medications. I got mine from my antidepressant.

During my last year of high school, increasing pressure in school led me to switching from escitalopram (aka Lexapro) to bupropion (aka Wellbutrin). And to its credit, Wellbutrin worked about as well as it could or really needed to, so I stayed on it. Until around June 2022, when in a movie theater I noticed that my mouth felt tight, as if my cheeks weren't sitting right on my teeth. So I smirked a little, trying to wiggle the feeling away. As an autistic person, weird body sensations weren't anything new to me, so I didn't think anything of it. Until I couldn't stop doing it. Nothing would make the feeling in my mouth stop. I didn't say anything about it at the time, because I figured it wouldn't get taken seriously by my GP. After all, I was a young female-presenting patient during a time where people "faking Tourette's" was considered a major trend. So I hid it for months. And the tics spread, from my face to my neck and shoulders. It got to the point where I didn't even notice I was doing it as I talked, and I worried about how it would affect my ability to drive. By the time I finally switched back to Lexapro, the neuromuscular pathways were formed, and there was nothing else that can be done. Although they're a lot less frequent nowadays, I still grimace when I'm tired or stressed, and sometimes I'll even shimmy my shoulders or stretch my neck to the side.

The only reason why I even knew TD was a condition was because I watched a psychiatrist youtuber reacting to old videos about psych wards, wherein he mentioned it as a side effect of the antipsychotics they would've used at the time.

While some have reported early intervention can reverse it, TD is hard to spot in its early stages and it gets progressively worse as you continue to take the medication that caused it. If not caught in time, it is likely to be irreversible.

I'm not telling you this as some bid to malign any medication or convince you to not take yours. I'm not sure I would've made it to graduation if I didn't take Wellbutrin, and the majority of people out there that take TD-causing medications don't develop it. What I am saying is that, if the corners of your mouth feel kind of itchy and shirts don't feel like they fit quite right on your shoulders, don't wait to talk to your doctor about switching your medication.

[mischiefmanifold]

Hey there, do you have some cool sources on other types on involuntary movement that are not tics?

Yes, I do! Here is a list of involuntary movements, a simple description, and links to resources on them:

Akathisia -> an inability to remain still

StatPearls article

cleveland clinic article (very good)

Akinesia -> the loss of spontaneous, voluntary muscle movement

StatPearls article (free article)

healthline article

Athetosis -> slow, continuous, involuntary writhing movements commonly affecting arms and hands

healthline article

Chorea -> rapid, chaotic movements that seem to flow from one body part to another

NINDS article

StatPearls article

Dystonia -> sustained or repetitious muscular contractions; often produces abnormal posture

mayo clinic article

NINDS article

StatPearls article

Hemiballismus -> sudden, intermittent, flinging, or ballistic high amplitude movements commonly affecting proximal limb muscles

StatPearls article

Myoclonus → sudden, brief, involuntary muscle twitches

mayo clinic article

NINDS article

StatPearls article

Parkinsonism -> a clinical syndrome characterized by slowness, rigidity, tremor, and postural instability

StatPearls article

parkinson's disease vs parkinsonism

types of parkinsonism (parkinson's UK)

types of parkinsonism (parkinson's foundation)

Stereotypies -> repetitive, rhythmic movements with typical onset in early childhood

stereotypies in adults

medlink article

Tardive Dyskinesia -> uncontrollable and repetitive movements of the tongue, lips, face, trunk, and extremities

webmd article

Tics -> sudden, rapid, recurrent, and nonrhythmic movements or vocalizations

mayo clinic article on tourette syndrome

NINDS article on tourette syndrome

child mind institute article on tics and tourette

Tremor -> rhythmic back-and-forth or oscillating involuntary movements

NINDS article

classification of tremor

(at request I can find Tumblr or blog posts talking about personal experiences with some of these movements)

Basic definitions come from this article: https://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/effects/drug-induced-abnormal-involuntary-movements-prevalence-and-treatment/

[conarcoin]

resources for staying safe online

always important, but i feel like especially recently. particularly stuff that’s a bit more than just the usual “don’t post personal info”

feel free to share this post on twitter or anywhere else, staying safe is important

justdeleteme.xyz - direct links to delete accounts

how a photo’s hidden exif data exposes your personal information

have i been pwned? - check if your accounts have been compromised in a data breach. CHANGE ANY ACCOUNT THAT USES THE SAME EMAIL AND PASSWORD

online harassment field manual

form for removing personal information from google (for the eu), see also: “remove your personal information from google”

extreme privacy: what it takes to disappear (personal data removal workbook)

filter lists for ublock origin, and more

restore privacy - online privacy resources center

privacytools.io

online spyware watchdog

how secure is your password?

defensive computing checklist

cloudflare dns

non-technical tips on staying anonymous

webrtc leak shield - chrome, firefox

web safety tutorials by the electronic frontier foundation

crash override network - resources for victims of doxing and online harassment

[conarcoin]

note: very slightly updated, reblog this version instead

[findingmelissa]

The Body Keeps the Score - Excerpts and Thoughts on Obsession and Addiction

Is it any wonder, then, that the traumatized individuals themselves cannot tolerate remembering it and that they often resort to using drugs, alcohol, or self-mutilation to block out their unbearable knowledge?

I never thought that's what I was doing, but it seems so obvious when I read it.

They may compulsively go to the gym to pump iron (but finding that they are never strong enough), numb themselves with drugs, or try to cultivate an illusory sense of control in highly dangerous situations (like motorcycle racing, bungee jumping, or working as an ambulance driver). Constantly fighting unseen dangers is exhausting and leaves them fatigued, depressed, and weary.

Hello.

People with PTSD have their floodgates wide open. Lacking a filter, they are on constant sensory overload. In order to cope, they try to shut themselves down and develop tunnel vision and hyperfocus. If they can't shut down naturally, they may enlist drugs or alcohol to block out the world. The tragedy is that the price of closing down includes filtering out sources of pleasure and joy, as well.

I've spent so many years feeling so blank about all the things I used to love. A horrible price to pay.

How many mental health problems, from drug addiction to self-injurious behavior, start as attempts to cope with the unbearable physical pain of our emotions?

My notes in the book at this point:

Death of dad in 2003 was when I started drinking heavily. After Andy in 2019 was when I started heavy drinking and smoking and doing drugs again. It took a little longer for it to hurt that time because I was already so entrenched in positive habits it took a while to break those and become more self destructive.

I can also go back to the trauma from when I was 12-13 and say that I also turned to self destructive behavior. Smoking, but more importantly, compulsive sexual behavior in my teens. Whoa.

Although widely understood to be harmful to health, each adaptation (such as smoking, drinking, drugs, obesity) is notably difficult to give up. Little consideration is given to the possibility that many long-term health risks might also be personally beneficial in the short term.

Every addiction for me is something to "lean on" because it's so hard for me to just BE.

Even though the trauma is a thing of the past, the emotional brain keeps generating sensations that make the sufferer feel scared and helpless. It's not surprising that so many trauma survivors are compulsive eaters and drinkers, fear making love, and avoid many social activities: Their sensory world is largely off limits. We do not truly know ourselves unless we can feel and interpret our physical sensations; we need to register and act on these sensations to navigate safely through life. 1While numbing (or compensatory sensation seeking) may make life tolerable, the price you pay is that you lose awareness of what is going on inside your body and, with that, the sense of being fully, sensually alive. This is the result of numbing, which keeps them from anticipating and responding to the ordinary demands of their bodies in quiet, mindful ways. At the same time, it muffles the everyday sensory delights of experiences like music, touch, and light, which imbue life with value. If you are not aware of what your body needs, you can't take care of it. If you are not aware of what your body needs, you can't take care of it. If you don't feel hunger, you can't nourish yourself. If you mistake anxiety for hunger, you may eat too much. And if you can't feel when you're satiated, you'll keep eating. This is why cultivating sensory awareness is such a critical aspect of trauma recovery.

It's been an eye-opening realization that I have numbed myself for so long so much that I am really out of touch with my body - what I really feel, what I need. Where my pains and discomforts come from. All I've done to my body for years is punish and damage it. I have been and still am very out of touch with my physical self. Time to change that.

Anyone who deals with survivors will encounter those "firefighters." I've met firefighters who shop, drink, play computer games addictively, have impulsive affairs, or exercise compulsively. A sordid encounter can blunt the abused child's horror and shame, if only for a couple of hours. It is critical to remember that, at their core, firefighters are also desperately trying to protect the system. Unlike managers, who are usually superficially cooperative during therapy, firefighters don't hold back: They hurl insults and storm out of the room. Firefighters are frantic, and if you ask them what would happen if they stopped doing their job, you discover that they believe the exiled feelings would crash the entire self-system. They are also oblivious to the idea that there are better ways to guarantee physical and emotional safety, and even if behaviors like bingeing or cutting stop, firefighters often find other methods of self-harm. These cycles will come to an end only when the Self is able to take charge and the system feels safe.

Me with running, me with my job stresses, my impatient and emotional outbursts, and all the CONTROL I think I need to have. A lot to think about here.

Approximately one-third to one-half of severely traumatized people develop substance abuse problems.

YOU DON'T SAY!

Final thoughts: I feel like I knew all the reasons I drank, smoked, did drugs, ran myself into the ground (literally, with running, and figuratively, with work). The excerpts here are just a handful of light bulb moments for me from this book as to why I have done all these self-destructive things for so many years.

There's a part of me that is really sad that it took so long to get to this learning phase. But better to be learning and changing it now than not at all.

[that-bipolar-mood]

I've said this ages ago, behold, the lithium post.

"Isn't that like a battery? Is it drinkable?"

Why don't we leave the science of it behind a bit, mostly because the majority is speculation.

1. Lithium is an element, one of the original elements if you'd like. It is found in nature and even in a class of stars (how poetic is that?)

Lithium salts have been used as long ago as ancient greece, in the form of baths, where they put manic patients. It's important to understand that the greeks sometimes had a funny (try googling Plato on mania) and sometimes quite accurate view of mental illness. Also, they were pretty tolerant and humane to those affected.

Around the 1950s, it was popular again and used in the treatment of melancholia and mania. It is still considered the best in terms of effectiveness.

2. The downside, although, is that lithium is most effective in patients with mania and especially classic type. For those with bipolar 2 or rapid cycling or even mixed episodes, another stabilazor or antidepressant is generally used.

The fact that lithium is monitored by blood plasma is a good thing and a bad thing. Doctors can easily tell its effectiveness, as your body and dose are adjusted to maintain the perfect level for you. Of course, the problem is lithium intoxication, which means that the concentration of lithium in your blood surpasses the optimal levels. Basically, it becomes toxic.

This can happen when you take too much, but not necessarily. When you build up lithium levels in your blood, even as little as exercise or slight dehydration cause the levels to rise. That's why the most important thing you can do is to stay hydrated and learn about the early signs of toxicity.

3. Side effects most people experience are excessive or pronounced thirst, which goes with frequent urination. This happens because your body is trying to "wash out" the foreign substance in your blood. Followed by tremors that have a range from mild to severe. It has to be noted that in some cases, additional medicine is prescribed if the person's job requires steady hands (for example, pianists).

(Some gain weight, there's evidence of acne connected with lithium, thyroid dysfunction or malfunction that usually happens after a long periods of time, coordination problems, night vision or vision in general problems, lower libido, and plenty plenty more...)

The modern form of lithium has reduced the majority of side effects. Lithium used to be notoriously bad for tolerating in terms of side effects. This is why people nowadays are still prejudiced. Ironically, it had the least side effects for me, none from the former paragraph.

4. The dose you are on matters and should be expected to change. For instance, when you have symptoms of mania, the doctor will up the dose, and once you are back to stability, they might lower it again to avoid depression.

Probably due to toxicity, lithium has a scary reputation. What helped me in the early days was trusting the history, because it was effective for not decades, but centuries. And the memoire An Unqiet Mind, where dr. Jamison tells her journey of how lithium saved her life.

It can also be a nuisance to have your blood levels checked, especially in the beginning, as it has to be more frequent.

Overall, I'd love if you could add your experiences with lithium, your own, or someone you know, to maybe help the narrative and those looking for answers.

[draconym]

Sure, you know how to self-flagellate, but do you know how to apologize? Saying "I'm a stupid idiot" is not the same thing as saying "I did something wrong."

[draconym]

People who want an apology pretty much never want to hear "I'm a stupid idiot." If someone is actually trying to get you to say you're a stupid idiot, it's not because it will make up for a mistake you made or harm you caused. It's because they want you to feel like a stupid idiot. People who care about you do not want you to feel like a stupid idiot and it hurts them when they see you putting yourself down in their name.

[synticity]

the three linguistics papers to read about singular they (morphosyntax)

Bjorkman, B. M. (2017). Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2(1). Open access link

Konnelly, L., & Cowper, E. (2020). Gender diversity and morphosyntax: An account of singular they. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 5(1). open access link

Conrod, K. (2022). Abolishing gender on D. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 67(3), 216-241. Open access link

in chronological order because these papers are all basically responding to each other; this papers focus on the (morpho)syntax and semantics of english singular 'they' referring to specific people (like they/them pronoun-users).

if you like posts like this, let me know! i'll give "three linguistics papers to read about (topic)" every once in a while based on interest

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[official-linguistics-post]

So if i may be so bold as to ask, how do accents arise? Are they informed by the language, do they inform the language, do both coexist in a loop of creating new dialects? Curious after seeing the recent-not-recent zeitgeist about how (falsely) different cities in different parts of the US are, and i wanna find some evidence to dig deeper ^0^

there's not a straightforward answer, necessarily! accents can develop in an isolated group and diverge from other varieties; they can find a midpoint between pronunciations; they're very dependent on exposure and social context.

here's a couple general articles on accent development, and one more technical piece on cognitive processing of different accents:

how different accents develop within the same language, laurie l. dove

linguists hear an accent begin, susanne bard

navigating accent variation: a developmental perspective, elizabeth k. johnson, marieke van heugten, and helen buckler

[mailorderfictionalcharacter]

Anxious, Agitated, & Mixed Depressions; Dysphoric/Mixed Hypo/manias

Things I’ve been reading recently. Standard does not equal endorsement not a professional not uncritical of what diagnostic labels are doing disclaimers.

Keep reading

[chthonic-pain]

everyone dunking on that automated fleshlight sex toy needs to remember that disabled people get horny too ok 💜

[chthonic-pain]

having a masturbator that moves itself, holds your phone, and gives the user exact and immediate control of speed and intensity is fucking revolutionary for disabled people who cannot jack off without assistive devices. for some reason nobody wants to talk about disabled people masturbating but since all of you #sexpositive #feminists agree that jacking off is normal and good and everyone should be able to do it, you have to extend that sentiment to disabled people too. people who cannot move their hands/arms get horny. people who have no core strength get horny. if you physically cannot hump a fleshlight or use a manual sex toy or give yourself a handjob then it is very difficult to experience sexual pleasure without another person involved.

disabled people deserve sex toys that work with their bodies. disabled people deserve to be able to sexually pleasure themselves. disabled people deserve adapted sex toys that the entire fucking internet does not decide to make "lazy basement dweller creep" jokes about.

[vitariesocks]

Reminder that in the 1970s, disabled man Gosnell Duncan, who was paralyzed from the waist down, created body-safe silicone and silicone dildos as a response to the needs of the disabled community. Duncan’s work was important in bringing sex toys — particularly dildos — into the public eye, meaning they became much more accessible for all Americans.

You can’t disconnect sex toys from disability and disability history. If you use any body-safe silicone today, sex toy or not, you have Duncan to thank.

More on Duncan here:

How Gosnell Duncan Changed the Feminist Sex-Toy Game Forever

It’s hard to imagine that sex toys were once controversial within the feminist movement.

[ouppyboy420]

Also, this website has really really great accessible sex toys and other sex accessories (chairs, cushions) Their stuff is priced pretty well too, considering that it’s high quality stuff.

Sex Mobility Aids & Accessible Sex Toys (Bolsters, Straps, Props)

Sex bolsters and straps, vibrators with handles, male strokers for erectile dysfunction and so much more. Naughty North has the ONLY collect

[certifiedsexed]

Certified Sex Ed Post!