Your local special snowflakes

Mixed System | Neurodivergent | Disabled Minor | White | Nonbinary | Queer They/them pronouns unless you know who you're talking to Call us Syth when referring to the entire system

[zsyth-blog]

me: not today, satan

satan: you’ve been canceling our plans for weeks now. if it’s something i said, please just tell me

[stayhungry-stayfree]

This is a really helpful page in my CBT textbook for tackling some of the maladaptive beliefs we often hold. The first column lists the rules and assumptions we often may tell ourselves, while the second column is a more functional belief. Just thought I would pass this along. Be kind to yourselves, friends❤

[ceekari]

Oh my god, number 5. And 6, and 7.

I frigging needed that.

[rollerskatinglizard]

Failure is not a permanent condition.

[kosmonauttihai]

The text on the image:

Maladaptive belief:  If I don’t do as well as others, I’m a failure. More functional belief: If I don’t do as well as others, I’m not a failure, just human.

Maladaptive belief:  If I ask for help, it’s a sign of weakness. More functional belief: If I ask for help when I need it, I’m showing good problem-solving abilities (which is a sign of strength).

Maladaptive belief:  If I fail at work/school, I’m a failure as a person. More functional belief: If I fail at work/school, it’s not a reflection of my whole self. (My whole self includes how I am as a friend, daughter, sister, relative, citizen, and community member, and my qualities of kindness, sensitivity to others, helpfulness, etc.) Also, failure is not a permanent condition.

Maladaptive belief:  I should be able to excel at everything I try. More functional belief: I shouldn’t be able to excel at something unless I am gifted in that area (and am willing and able to devote considerable time and effort toward it at the expense of other things.

Maladaptive belief:  I should always work hard and do my best. More functional belief: I should put in a reasonable amount of effort much of the time.

Maladaptive belief:  If I don’t live up to my potential, I have failed. More functional belief: If I do less than my best, I have succeeded perhaps 70%, 80%, or 90%; not 0%.

Maladaptive belief:  If I don’t work hard all the time, I’ll fail. More functional belief: If I don’t work hard all the time, I’ll probably do reasonably well and have a more balanced life.

[hypotheticalwoman]

Maladaptive belief: If I don’t do things the harder way, I’m a lazy person.

More functional belief: If I do things the easier way, I’m working efficiently and conserving my energy.

(This absolutely stopped me buying groceries and other household essentials online for years. Because I thought I was lazy if I didn’t trek around on foot and public transport to get what I needed. It wasted so much time and money.)

[princess-mononoke]

[lovelystimmy]

when you touch a Bad Texture™ and have to scrub at ur hands until the feeling is gone

[egregiousoveruseofnormalcy-deac]

When your teeth scrape against something they don’t like and your entire body tries to escape the upper atmosphere.

[betaferret]

When your nails drag across an Unpleasant Thing so your arms stop working from the elbows down and your ears ring.

[zsyth-blog]

brain: here, have some emotions!

me: oh, no thank you, im on a diet

[disorderrd]

[10:38a] void: ‘how do you feel anything at all ?’

[taptrial2]

i love autistic people so much… we’re so damn cool i love u all

[bpdzoldyck-deactivated20181014]

A note on the topic of trauma that I personally found helpful in accepting the idea that I am a trauma victim is that one of the most widely accepted facts in the field of trauma research is that abuse is often not the common factor in whether somebody will develop ptsd. 

Many people can go through awful things without developing trauma based disorders as long as they receive compassion and support in processing those events as they happen. The most common factor in developing something like ptsd is emotional neglect. And emotional neglect on it’s own can be enough. 

Whatever you went through was enough I promise, you’re not overreacting. Abuse and neglect are traumatic at any level, you don’t need to have gone through the worst possible experience you can think of to develop ptsd. If it hurt you then it hurt you.

[micchi-monster]

…..oh.

[fabulousworkinprogress]

And to support that, the number one determining factor on how badly something affects a person is how they’re treated afterward, not how objectively bad the event was. They’re called resiliency factors.

It looks like this:

Horrible brutal traumatic event + Family and community support + legal amelioration + closure and therapy and help 

ONE MILLION TIMES MORE LIKELY TO RECOVER THAN

Event that the sufferer may think “seems minor” compared to what others have been through + Family neglect and abuse (you deserved it, name calling, support the abuser) + no legal means + denial and stifling and no therapeutic support

I have been raped, I have been abused by someone who was supposed to be family to me, and I have recovered and gotten my life back together. I have psychiatrists, psychologists, best friends, lovers, and family who support me. I did not get legal justice, but I got the person(s) out of my life.

My friend was repeatedly verbally abused by his step-parent, and when he was abused and hurt by others he was blamed for it by that parent. He had no support and no one to talk to about it for over 10 years.

He still feels guilty for even being affected by it and I’ve had long talks with him about how it isn’t “nothing compared to” what I went through. 

You are not wrong to be upset. You are not wrong to feel the effects of trauma. Your hurt cannot be measured against anyone else’s. Your resiliency is your own and your situation is valid to you. Perception is everything. The worst thing that ever happened to you might ostensibly be less bad than the worst thing that ever happened to me - but it still is what happened to YOU.

[lilbittydragon-deactivated20241]

Trauma is so predictable that we can make tidy little equations out of it. The ones above are good, but the ones I’ve seen are a little simpler. Something like: 

Overwhelming Experience + Isolation + Shame = PTSD

[molly-ren]

Whoa. I am going to have to think about this for a bit–it would explain the HUGE difference in two post-trauma experiences I’ve had (one without support and one with.) Wow.

[violent-darts]

*points up* The shortest one is the one most useful to me, because part of my difficulty is also that the isolation and shame weren’t and aren’t things that can be pinned down to any particular failure on anyone’s part. 

Overwhelmingly, they were the result of societal factors where what convinced me that I was alone, and had to stay alone, and had to hide and cover things up, was Everything About Society. In many cases to the point where Everything About Society’s opinions overrode the explicitly expressed feelings of adults who were actually involved in raising me. (Or in some cases EAS meant that a single expressed opinion that isolated me got ALL THE BACKUP and became the Truth, whereas all the supportive stuff I’d heard that might have brought me to seek connection and integration got no backup, and got drowned out.) 

And then there were a lot of others wherein there was no NEGLECT, but I still ended up feeling Isolated, Alien and Alone…because of the time and the society I was stuck in at that point, and nobody having the necessary knowledge (including me) to be aware of that isolation in spite of all the outward appearance of support, or to do anything about it. 

I’m not going into More Detail, because I don’t feel like having a Share Trauma on the Internet Day. But that’s the other thing I think is sometimes important or useful to remember: sometimes, trauma fucks us up because someone did something wrong, or dropped the ball, or whatever. 

But sometimes everyone involved was doing the best they could, and not in the damn-with-faint-praise way, but the shape of the situation still ended up with us feeling isolated and ashamed, and that fucked us over. So being aware that you are fucked up, and were fucked over, doesn’t have to mean blaming anyone. 

(You can do everything right, as best you can, and still lose.) 

[hallucin8]

mental disorders holding you back from ur potential & making u settle in life is the slowest type of torture

[beeth0ven]

No, It’s Not “In Spite Of” Anything...

I absolutely hate when people say “so and so did x in spite of their disability” or “so and so overcame their disability and did x.” Because really, that’s not how it works. Disability and illness shapes a person and their experiences. Most of the time, it’s not “in spite of” our disabilities, it’s because of them.

Let’s look at some historical examples, shall we?

Take FDR. He was a wealthy, pompous playboy from a political dynasty who Gatsby-ed his way through the Roaring 20s without ever experiencing the real world. He didn’t become president in spite of having polio, he became president because of it. At a time of national hopelessness and desperation, his polio put him into the real world- into a place of understanding for the common man affected by The Depression. It humanized him and it got him 4 terms. It inspired the March of Dimes which consequently ended up funding Salk’s vaccine. That’s not “in spite of,” that’s because of.

Beethoven did not make music in spite of being deaf. In fact, he revolutionized Romantic music because of his distinct lack of high notes. His symphonies, especially his later works, are all much lower than what was common at the time, and it was all because he couldn’t hear high-pitched sounds.

Frida Kahlo did not blur the lines between Expressionism and Surrealism in spite of being disabled, she did it because she was bedridden and bored. Because she was in pain and she was shunned. In the same way her relationship with Diego Rivera inspired her works, so did being disabled. She didn’t overcome anything expect societies limitations.

The truth is, disability and illness are integral parts of our identities and they do shape our lives. The worlds we build and create are not made by overcoming the hindrance of disability, they are made because of the perspective it gives up. 

Erase the idea of in spite of. Erase the idea that our success comes from overcoming anything other than deep-seeded ableism. 

[wlwellbutrin]

people wanna act like adhd is just forgetting shit all the time but you guys need to stop ignoring our emotional volatility/vulnerability, rejection sensitive dysphoria, the high comorbidity with substance use and depression and suicidal ideation like… adhd is not pretty. it’s not fun. lots of us are miserable all the time and we’re difficult to be around and we tend to have very complicated psych profiles that mimic a lot of aspects of bpd and bipolar. adhd is god damn complicated stop trying to sideline it

[guromoth]

someone:how are you? me:uuuuhhhhhhhh

[zsyth-blog]

me: *is suspicious when ppl are nice to me*

me: *is suspicious when ppl are not nice to me*

[physichotic]

shout out to my neurodivergents who barely ever leave the house

shout out to my neurodivergents who go months without bathing and sometimes need others to give them sponge baths

shout out to my neurodivergents who dropped out of school because their illness got so bad and they couldn’t cope

shout out to my neurodivergents who have been hospitalised over and over and over again and see no end to it in their future

shout out to my neurodivergents who can’t hold down a job and need to be on disability

shout out to my neurodivergents who can’t live on their own and who will always be dependent on someone to help/remind them to do the basic things required for survival

shout out to neurodivergents who are barely capable of functioning

shout out to my neurodivergents who get told that they’re “lazy” and “worthless” because they make “no valuable contribution to society”

shout out to my neurodivergents who hear stories of people with the same disorders as them who are successful and working even while being ill and wonder what the hell is wrong with them that they can’t do that too

shout out to all my neurodivergents who feel like failures and disappointments and are never told any different

i love and support you all so much. we are not bad people. we are not lazy or worthless. we are doing our best and that best may not even be as good as another person’s worst but damn it we’re trying and we get almost no recognition for that. and you know what? we really should.

[zsyth-blog]

someone: tell me about yourself

me: don't know them sorry

[autismproblems]

autism problem #945

When you are constantly walking into things /losing your balance and it’s. so. embarrassing.

[guinifiku]

call out post for myself

bitch thought she was straight once