Darlena, adult. Occupation: Evil vampire queen. Respectfully leave me alone. ❤️ This is half a personal blog and another half a "in my fucked up and evil era" blog.
1. Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human // 2. Pinterest // 3. Franz Kafka, Diaries, (1910-1923) // 4. Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human // 5. Pinterest // 6. Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice // 7. @/king_natasha on flickr // 8. Pinterest // 9. David Levithan, Love Is the Higher Law // 10. Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice
God. Real. Sorry man, I'm going to ramble extensively about my experiences on your post. Feel free to ignore.
I find I'm more fluctuating/weird empathy than no/steady low, which Fucking Sucks Ass because I can't even provide a steady amount of responsiveness. Affective empathy fucks me over hardest. The rest of it is probably flawed as well, wouldn't be surprised. I can't quite tell which other types of empathy aren't doing so hot.
TWs: SUI, DEATH, HOSPITALISATION, GRIEF, RELIGION, DEHUMANIZATION, JUST A LOT
Picture I'm like 17 years old.
I remember when mom told me P had attempted on her life, that's one of my strongest memories where I just blatantly lacked affective empathy. God only knows what else. I had a brief sobbing burst at first. Didn't even last a minute. I lamented once, literally went "oh, what has she done?" In the sense that it was a tragic thing. In the sense that I hoped she wouldn't, I hoped she would find a way to recover, I had faith that she would and I wanted desperately to see her thrive some day. It wasn't blame, in case that needs to be said.
That was all, emotional expression left the chat. I felt something for sure. I think I was sad in some way, at least. Nothing on my face, not a whole lot in my head either. I remember mom looked at me like I'm some sort of freak of nature. I think I will always remember that otherness. I made myself useful. I consoled everyone else, offered acts of service and some sort of emotional support whenever I could actually do that well. I took care of them. Just listened, said whatever scripted shit I could come up with, helped with emotional regulation, fetched things, made food, service service and more service.
Mask it and make up for what you lack as if you're atoning for some great sin. Make up for the fact that you are broken and you cannot be like them.
I visited P at the hospital every day, spent hours there. Held her hand, combed her hair when it got tangled, talked to her, told her about things I knew she would be interested in, played music I knew she liked. Even though she likely had so much brain damage that she didn't understand any of it. I was kind of desperate and I wanted to think it counted for something. So much shame and guilt. So much "atoning for my crime." I spent the rest of the time on the run, basically. Escaped. Drove, walked and biked around aimlessly. Chilled in the city until midnight. Sat at the beach or in the woods alone. I couldn't mirror everyone else's feelings and grieve the way I was expected. I just couldn't go home and face more alienation, more reminders I'm broken in some way. I came home as late as I could, hoped everyone was asleep.
Then when P died and everyone was crying in the living room, I just fucking stood there like :| like a total cock and felt the immense weight of her death, my guilt and my alienation. I did feel. Still not how and how much I should.
My 17-ish year old self was just thinking "In a way, I'm kind of glad. Her body wouldn't recover without a damn miracle, the staff made it clear what her chances are. She wrote she didn't want to recover from this either. She's not suffering against her will, not forced to. Isn't that what she wanted? Is this not the most ethical outcome then?"
I kept up the same attempts to support everyone. Still emotionally dull by comparison. I visited grandma (P's maternal figure) every day after her death. She turned to her faith. We read Bible passages, she looked for "messages" based on P's hospitalisation and death date. I didn't understand her on that but I helped. I went to church with her, we prayed, we sang hymns. I'm an atheist, quite religion-averse. But I saw it helped her cope, It made her feel supported and loved. I went through P's stuff with her, listened to her reminisce and go through all the emotions, I held her while she did and petted her. Tried to help her make sense of P's reasons, as much as could be. I reassured her that she had done all she could and been a good guardian to P, from what I could tell.
At 21-ish, I handled dad's death a bit better. I think. It was not a similar situation though, so it's not fully comparable. I have managed to show more emotion this time, I think? Though a lot of it came out as anger this time.
It felt like I had never done enough. I wasn't doing that one thing I was expected to. It was implied, more or less hidden, that I am cold and unfeeling. That I do not care. I kept trying to make up for it. To somehow show it. More caregiving. Lord did I fucking try but it seems nothing really makes up for it. One of those things that have made me feel Not Even Human TM all my life. I mean, some define the very concept of humanity by capacity for empathy - what am I meant to do with that? /rhetorical
?? empathy culture is struggling to identify "empathy" from "sympathy" and struggling to sense when you're feeling The Emotion (cause you can't tell which it is) regarding most real life situations, but then bawling your eyes out when watching a movie or reading a book where someone dies, even if you've just met them.
Like, what is even happening? *shakes brain* Please, I need answers! /lh
Having psychosis but not "glaringly obvious" psychosis is weird. I did start to wonder about myself years ago, but went into denial about my symptoms quickly and easily because it's not like I was having vivid hallucinations. I've never held a conversation with someone who's not there, for example. And this is somewhat my bad for only having a stereotyped understanding of what psychosis can look like.
For me though, my schizospec/psychosis symptoms look like this:
Perceptual distortions: Hearing or seeing things incorrectly. Everyday sounds morph into people talking to me, usually with indistinguishable words/ babble. Images are distorted or skewed. It takes me a moment to recognize an object sometimes, even with clear visibility.
Mild hallucinations: I'll hear music playing quietly or electronic noises, see shadows or shapes at the corner of my eye or as a flash that immediately vanishes. Sometimes I think I see a bug crawling near me but when I go to look directly at it, there's nothing there. I'll smell things that aren't there, and sometimes even feel touch - though I attribute that mostly to C-PTSD. The most vivid hallucination I can ever remember having was a door slamming.
Ideas of reference: I sometimes interpret things as having some kind of "special" meaning to me. I see "signs" and tend to view things in a superstitious way. I see things as good or bad omens. I think random events are some part of fate. When I'm not doing it I can see how irrational that is, but it happens anyway.
Paranoia and delusions: My prime example of this is a reoccurring belief that my therapist doesn't think I have DID at all and is only playing along for some unknown and malicious reason. When under enough stress, I've also been afraid to take medicine in case it's been tampered with or someone is trying to drug me with the wrong dose.
Overall, my psychotic symptoms get noticeably worse with stress or lack of sleep. I can go for long periods of time with virtually no psychosis at all, but it always reoccurs.
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