Rediscovering Happiness

Erin, 28, BA in Psychology, recovering from depression, anxiety (social and generalized), anorexia, OCPD, panic disorder, and self harm. Late-Diagnosed Autistic. IST, POTS, PCOS, hypothyroidism, and other undiagnosed physical health issues. Here to help anyone who needs it

[tapingmyselfbacktogether]

I’ll post an update soon but I pretty much just blew up my future, so … yeah

[tapingmyselfbacktogether]

Reading old posts and I came across this one from July 2022. The inciting event... I forgot to take my midterm for one of my grad school classes while already on academic probation for failing a class in the spring semester. I knew I was going to be kicked out of my program. I was only working part time while in school, but was extremely overwhelmed and close to relapsing.

February of 2023 a full-time position opened up on my team and I applied. I have now been working this job full-time for over a year. I know it is not what I want to spend my life doing, but there is no time limit by which I have to have that all figured out by. I am happy now just living my life. I also know that the program I was in is not what I want to spend my life doing and I was making myself miserable trying to make it work.

Things that seem like the end of the world at the time sometimes turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

[anxious-and-in-pain]

it’s okay to do things that make your symptoms worse (as long as you’ll stay safe)

every once in a while you need to eat something yummy. or go on a walk. or a trip to the zoo. take a hot shower. cry your eyes out. dance. listen to music. draw for way to long. write. laugh. sit in a cafe with a friend. paint your nails. dye your hair. go on a run. pet a cat

sometimes you need to do things that are cathartic or make yourself feel alive. sometimes you need the reminder of why you’re fighting so hard to stay alive

this is your reminder that just because it makes your symptoms worse, it isn’t always the wrong thing to do. there can be value in these actions

[lifewithchronicpain]

If you think about it too, abled people do it all the time. Deciding to drink to excess at a party knowing they'll have a hangover. Going to a theme park knowing walking all day is going to hurt their feet by the end. We have the right to make those same decisions.

[ghostly-light]

This is called Dignity of Risk, and it's an important concept in disability justice.

Everyone weighs their physical and mental/emotional health against one another in constantly shifting balance; inevitably, there are times when we choose to accept consequences to one for the sake of the other.

Infantilsing us by undermining our agency in the name of "protection" or "care" is yet another way that we are disabled by society.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

It's a lot healthier to go for a daily walk than to sign up for a gym membership you won't be using because you hate that kind of exercise. It's a lot healthier to eat a frozen meal than to skip a meal because you were too tired to cook something healthy. It's a lot healthier to take a quick shower than to procrastinate an elaborate routine for days. Don't aim so high that you won't be hitting anything!

[creamypancakebatter]

this is actually really helpful and affirming thanks

[weltenwellen]

Mary Oliver, from “Hum Hum”, A Thousand Mornings

[nevershootamockingbird]

[ begin id: a screenshot of black text with the second two lines highlighted in green. The text reads "Some wounds never vanish.

Yet little by little I learned to love my life." / end id ]

[flowercrowncrip]

Shout out to people who can’t follow sleep hygiene rules because of their disability.

Shout out to people who need to rest in bed without sleeping because being in a wheelchair/ chair for too long causes problems like pain, fatigue or pressure risk.

And people who can’t sleep in a dark room because their medical devices and equipment have essential lights.

And also to people who need a PA/ carer to frequently come in during the night and disturb you.

Just in case you need to hear it – you aren’t doing anything wrong 💜

[stuckinapril]

True isolation is when everyone else is talking about their vibrant teenage experience and you’re like. I was just trying to survive

[tropics777]

And in these next 50 years you will eat so many delicious meals, laugh so many times with so many people you love, shout and scream and sing and cry and smile so hard your face hurts. And you will see such beautiful sunsets and feel fresh cold air on your face and feel warm and safe wrapped up in your favourite winter coat.

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

I wrap this blessing around you like a shroud, so that no ill can find you, and every warmth is held close

[spooniestrong]

Remember: being in pain uses energy. There’s nothing wrong with taking a long nap or sleeping in late after being in pain all day. If you need to rest, do it; don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise.

Listen to your body and its needs.

[atinycupofpositivitea]

This is the sign that you are going to make it.

Take care.

[thequotegarden]

[thatchronicfeeling]

[Caption: I hope you believe that you can still make a beautiful life for yourself even if you lost many years of it to grief, or darkness, or a would that wouldn't close.]

[borderlinereminders]

Let’s stop beating ourselves up for the things we did in the past or how we were back then and instead we celebrate and give ourselves credit for knowing better now.

[tapingmyselfbacktogether]

28

I turned 28 today. I never expected to even make it to 18. I am so proud of all the progress I have made. I still have bad days, but the good outnumber the bad. I have held down a full-time job for the last 11 months while maintaining an active social life, volunteering, and rediscovering a healthy relationship with exercise. I cannot wait to see what the next year brings me.

[tapingmyselfbacktogether]

Things have been good lately and I don't know how to handle that

[newhologram]

The love/hate relationship with naptime as a disabled person could fuel the galaxy for millennia

[beingboring-wav]

i think if you don’t have sensory difficulties, it’s easier to diminish them as a matter of “preference.” but they are not.

when i, an autistic person, say “I cannot handle bell pepper,” I don’t mean “I would rather avoid it.” i mean actively, if all the food offered to me for six days straight contained bell peppers, i would starve. there is nothing on this entire planet that would make me eat them, because i can not handle them. and so by extension, when another autistic person only has four-or-five meals that they will eat, removing one of these meals will not allow for a substitute to occur. it’ll be one meal less they’re eating. and these same foods can be brand-specific. even if you, as a person without sensitivities, can’t tell a sensory difference, it is possible for people with these differences to be able to. there’s a whole disorder named after this. (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder.)

this isn’t a die-hard rule. some of us have extreme sensitivities and are brand specific. some of us do not. some of us can tolerate it. some of us cannot. but do not get upset at autistic people who point out something such as “it is very possible for us to only want to eat that one specific type of Kraft Mac and Cheese and abandoning that would starve us.”

(OK to reblog!)

[crazycatsiren]

Gentle reminders to my disabled/spoonie followers:

Are there doctors' appointments you need to make?

Any medication that needs to be refilled/picked up?

Any medical device that needs to be cleaned/recharged?

Don't forget to hug and kiss your pets.

[fantasyamazon-deactivated202605]

[id: screenshots of tiktok captions. the images say, “but the only reason we still love princess diana is because she did not have the time to disappoint us.”]

begging queer kids to read up on princess diana’s involvement with the community. yes, she was a rich, pretty monarch. yes, she died young.

but the reason why queer people love her is because she used her privilege during the aids crisis to advocate for sick queer men, when very few others would - much less someone of her status.

diana spent years advocating for the health and care of queer people with hiv/aids. in 1987, at the height of the epidemic, she opened the first specialist clinic dedicated to treating aids patients (the first clinic of it’s kind in the uk).

she also fought public hysteria by hugging and shaking bare hands with aids patients, at a time when aids was thought to be spread by skin to skin contact. not only that, she visited patients in the clinic regularly and even comforted them through their sickness.

and when queen elizabeth told her to try focusing on “something more pleasant”?

diana ignored her and kept fighting.

and this is only her work towards the aids crisis. she publicly called out the royal family, brought attention to numerous world issues, and was known as an advocate for empathy and kindness. she’s known and loved as the people’s princess for good reason

[sepdet]

Diana also literally walked across a minefield (through a lane cleared by the humanitarian organization HALO Trust, which she was promoting, but there was still some risk). She used the paparazzi who always followed her around to raise awareness of the plight of landmine victims in Angola, met with survivors who still talk about her visit, advocated on their behalf to the UN, and then went to other places suffering the same problem.

Her advocacy was instrumental in helping push forward a treaty to ban the use, production, and export of land mines. She was attacked by British politicians for meddling in government policy, but the Ottawa Treaty was signed by 122 countries including the UK three months after her death. One of the anti-landmine groups in which she’d been involved received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Diana's support was 'turning point' in landmine ban effort

The princess's backing brought the campaign wider attention, says the founder of an anti-landmine group.

I remember the photos of her holding hands with dying AIDS patients, of her sitting by them and listening to them like fellow human beings, at a time when tolerance was radical and most people feared AIDS was transmissible by touch.

I also remember her holding HIV-positive babies, when most people were paranoid about fluids from AIDS patients— and let’s face it, babies leak. (There was a brutal subtext to criticism of Diana’s AIDS work: was she neglecting, even endangering, the heir(s) to the throne?)

Like Carrie Fisher, Diana wasn’t a perfect human being. But she did indeed use her privilege to advocate for and amplify the voices of those with none.