#mibingo

[mental-illness-bingo]

Me: Can I even really call it trauma, though? It wasn't *that* bad, right? Other kids have definitely been through worse.

The men in my head that my brain created to love and protect me because I couldn't handle my childhood otherwise: 🧍‍♂️😐

[mental-illness-bingo]

Me when I experience something that is literally DSM criteria: Oh no this must be proof that I’m faking.

[mental-illness-bingo]

Me: I have no amnesia, I must not be a system

Also me, while watching a video on DID: why are all these comments liked I've never seen this youtube is broken

[mental-illness-bingo]

Guys guys guys I’ve got a Douglas dog plush coming in!!!!!!! I’m so excited I’ve seen so many people with these realistic dog plushies as ESSAs and I’ve been trying to find some good ones.

Edit: guys they sent him to me unstuffed 😭 they forgot to stuff the body part so I gotta return and rebuy

Edit 2: turns out his stuffing was just EXTREMELY compressed he’s puffing back up!

[mental-illness-bingo]

Listen my DID has caused both a lot of pain and stress (and saved me a million times over) so insert disclaimer about not romanticizing/glorifying here

BUT you can pry my “well at least I get to date the fictional characters I fall for” out of my COLD. DEAD. HANDS.

Thank you that will be all we now return you to your regularly scheduled trauma posting.

Endos fuck off this post in particular please. I’m not comfortable seeing you make light of a trauma disorder by using my post for it. Generally I get that chances are you actually do have trauma you don’t remember because that’s literally what DID is supposed to do but in this case I do not have it in me to see endo stuff on this. I can be playful and pretend this disorder is fun for a moment because I know that I still struggle and that I fought to survive so much for so long that my goddamn brain stopped developing into a single person and never fused the personality from ego states like it was meant to - forced to stay in pieces because it couldn’t manage to live that way, and at least what you say is that you got this without any of that. I know you’re probably not trying to cherry-pick and take the good and leave the actual disorder part of systemhood behind but that’s how it would feel to see you reblogging this particular post. Thanks./gen /nm

Edit: added color bc I feel like it helps put attention on the point of the post above the annoying disclaimer

[mental-illness-bingo]

Process of finding things with ADHD:

1. Check directly in front of your face, extensively, minimum 3 times, in a futile attempt to avoid steps 2-9

2. Decide it is absolutely not directly in front of your face and swear on god himself that you will not find it there in 2 minutes

3. Check Every Other Place (TM) you think it reasonably could be

4. Check all the places it absolutely should not be

5. Check the fridge/oven/washing machine/microwave

6. Panic

7. Accept defeat and return to where you were sitting (approx 2 minutes later)

8. Find the item directly in front of your face

9. Gaslight yourself into believing in magic/god/house elves/anything to convince yourself this isn't your fault

10. Repeat

[mental-illness-bingo]

Wake up babe new in-system lore just dropped

[mental-illness-bingo]

Struggling with transitions isn't always externalized in the form of a meltdown. Here are some examples of things (from an autistic former early childhood teacher) that also count as struggling with transitions.

Note: I'm including things to do with adult transitions and childhood transitions here. Examples and explanations are given in italics.

Trying to politely decline to transition - sometimes, this may include lying about your wants/needs or not even realizing you want or need something because your brain isn't processing that information during the stress of a transition; "Becca, it's time for snack." "No thank you, I'm not hungry."

Undetectable self-harm behaviors - digging nails into palm, "itching" when you aren't itchy, internally degrading yourself, biting cheek or tongue, holding breath until you can't anymore. Self-harm during transitions is a common and valid struggle, even if you didn't try to use it as leverage to avoid the transition.

Undetectable stimming to regulate (very healthy!) - especially with objects that have a similar texture to one from the previous area or material

Slow or stuttered transitions - Starting to move on, but repeatedly having "just one more thing (you) forgot" or physically walking away slower possibly while staring at the previous area or material

Verbal shutdown (total or partial) during or immediately after transitions - this could be part of a more overall shutdown or exist on it's own

Fixating on the previous task/area/material - may show by excessively talking about the previous task long after others have moved on for example trying to tell everyone about your cool lego building or even showing them pictures of it (taking pictures is good coping mechanism for moving on from a toy) long after everyone stopped playing with or talking about legos, or if you were moving from legos to drawing, wanting to draw a picture of legos

Keeping materials from the previous task - if you were playing with legos, but have to clean up, you might keep some to build with or even a single lego on your person somewhere as a comfort. In larger/life transitions, you may refuse to get rid of something long past when it is socially acceptable (such as an ex's shirt) or taking something "strange" such as a piece of trim or a scrap of wallpaper from a previous house.

Brain fog, fatigue, disorientation, and/or dissociation during and/or immediately after a transition

Internal emotional distress during/immediately after transitions - due to autistic issues with emotional regulation, these emotions may last the rest of the day if not supported because of bottling up the emotions

Executive dysfunction post-transition - especially if you don't usually struggle with it or weren't before the transition

When going to bed, insomnia is an extremely common presentation of struggling with transitions

Feel free to add on! Preferably in the text of the reblog rather than in tags so I can reblog this with your additions, but either works!

I also want to specify that not all of these are harmful or negative responses to transitions. If you do these things and they help you without hurting anyone, that's fine! This is just to help give you the language to get help as needed because it's much easier to get help if you say "I struggle with transitions because of my autism" than "I'm struggling right now but I'm not sure why".