Chitchat How would you describe your addiction, affliction or mental illness?

Autumn McJavabean

Autumn McJavabean

Prettier than you.
I'm starting a new series of stories that explores the POV of people with mental illnesses or addictions and how it affects them and their way of thinking, to shed light on things like major depression or suicide, to help fight stigma. But I only suffer from my own, so I'd love to hear my fellow brothers and sisters what they suffer and how they would explain it to someone.

Please be kosher and only explain if you would like to. If it's something new and I want to feature it, I may DM you for your help for one of my stories.

Capricious is my new series that focuses on important topics to me.

What if you could see through the mind of someone with a mental illness? Hear their thoughts? See what they see? What if you could find a way to be in the shoes of someone who is addicted to alcohol, or smoking? Have you every wondered what suicidal thoughts are like and what someone goes through?

Capricious erases the line of modesty by explicitly showing scenes otherwise not shown to give insight.

I will start off by just listing what I suffer with: Major depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, generalised anxiety disorder.
 
I used to suffer from depression, and my story is a bit more different than others.

I literally worked myself out of having it.

I gave myself a ridiculously busy schedule, because I know that while I'm working, I won't have time to be sad. Eventually, I worked myself out of the depressive episodes I'd been having. While I suffered from depression, I was cold and withdrew myself from the world. Getting out and being around people while I worked, either at school or at work, led me to be nicer and friendlier. Those people eventually became my reason to keep going.
 
I've been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety, depression, disassociative disorder (not otherwise specified) and PTSD (Unsure) and deal with visual hallucinations on a daily basis.
I go through phases where I feel fine while other days I see things that aren't actually there. The sensation I get when I know I'm about to start hallucinating is a deep gut feeling that something is wrong. This is usually accompanied by the intense feeling that people I love are angry at me and other such delusions. Once it gets past this point I usually start to hallucinate small things such as my skin peeling off or shadowy figures walking around me (viewed from the peripheral.)
If this goes unchecked for too long the hallucinations start to get worse. More vivid and frequent. I've been dealing with this for 6 years now and I've managed to stop my psychosis from increasing to dangerously psychotic levels but in my youth have experienced hallucinations that I could see, feel, hear and would last several hours.
These are my demons and I've come to the realization that I need to accept that this may never go away. I don't fear them - they're not real - I try to move on and keep living to the best of my abilities but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me cry myself to sleep sometimes.
 
Schizophrenia. I regularly hallucinate shit, hear voices, see shadows moving, see people that are not "really there" and etc. Other than that the regular old depression & anxiety.
 
Social anxiety and i have a gut feeling i'm also autistic (not diagnosed yet, simply because i'm not an extreme case but will be tested soon). According to my mom my social anxiety has always been there since i was young and it has always been very extreme, so there was no way that i would go to the store just on my own or cycle alone, or ask a question during class or ask a stranger, and the days were i'd be so sad just because at school a group of girls looked at me and i was a 100% they were making fun of me, yet all the did was look. I've followed two full therapy cycles which helped me both, there's still a loooong road to go but i'll get there step by step!

What i actually wanted to say is that i'm very interested in reading your stories. It's a very good idea and something i've been looking for quite a while! Especially about schizophrenia.
 
I’d describe being autistic as... something I’m proud of. I don’t consider it an illness (even though it is a mental illness by definition), but rather just apart of who I am.
 
Lethargic Yuki Co. said:
I’d describe being autistic as... something I’m proud of. I don’t consider it an illness (even though it is a mental illness by definition), but rather just apart of who I am.
Click to expand...
Do you mind if I ask what being autistic means? As in, how does it affect you? How would you try to explain it so someone can understand your POV?
 
zeroinspo said:
Social anxiety and i have a gut feeling i'm also autistic (not diagnosed yet, simply because i'm not an extreme case but will be tested soon). According to my mom my social anxiety has always been there since i was young and it has always been very extreme, so there was no way that i would go to the store just on my own or cycle alone, or ask a question during class or ask a stranger, and the days were i'd be so sad just because at school a group of girls looked at me and i was a 100% they were making fun of me, yet all the did was look. I've followed two full therapy cycles which helped me both, there's still a loooong road to go but i'll get there step by step!

What i actually wanted to say is that i'm very interested in reading your stories. It's a very good idea and something i've been looking for quite a while! Especially about schizophrenia.
Click to expand...
Well you can read it from the link above in the OP. :)
 
Well, I’m extremely-high functioning. For me, being autistic means having a bit of a stutter, not having the best social skills in the whole galaxy (I know neurotypical people who have worse, though), a poker face for the history books, and being shy and socially awkward (not anymore on the last two, though).
 
Hmm. Well I don't have a mental illness or affliction, at least they aren't prominent enough for me to notice

As for addiction. Hmm. I am addicted to soda, more specifically Dr. Pepper. It is the only soda I drink, and I probably drink too much.
 
I'm copying something from another thread, but I feel as though it applies.

I have always been interested in mental health, from as far back as I can remember. I understand that some people don't like being too personal, especially online, and there's nothing wrong with that! I totally understand, it can be a hard thing to talk about. Plus people like to judge, perhaps because it's difficult to comprehend something you haven't dealt with yourself. I suffer from bipolar disorder, PTSD, and some sort of social anxiety (that is a recent thing, but it doesn't affect me as much anymore simply because I only go out with those I care about, or I stay home).

I lost my dad when I was seven years old. I vividly remember the conversation between me and my mom, where she told me my daddy wasn't coming home. I cried, of course, but then I wrote. I wrote a little two page story, entitled 'The Day My Daddy Died'. Writing has always been a coping mechanism of mine, apparently. I spent the next few years of my life struggling with a depression that nobody understood, not even myself. It wasn't until middle school that someone pointed out to my single mother that I needed help. I was diagnosed with depression and placed on medication. I would fight and argue with my mom, pleading with her not to make me take it. It was a never ending battle, every day was the same thing, over and over. Medication is trial and error anyway; I tried many different meds, and nothing was working.

Right out of high school I met a guy, started dating, blah blah blah. He was a jerk, but to be honest, I wasn't very easy to deal with because at that time, I wasn't medicated at all. I went over to his house one day, knowing he was home, just to cuss him out for not calling me. I was probably around twenty something (maybe 20, 21) when I checked myself into a mental health clinic not because I wanted to die, but because I wanted to hurt myself to deal with all the negative thoughts and emotions that I didn't have any other way to deal with. I was so deep into this black abyss that I couldn't tell up from down. I bullshitted my way out of that clinic because I hated it, but they diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. Maybe a year or so down the line, I got pregnant. I found out at 4 weeks, and by 6.5 weeks into the pregnancy, I lost my baby. It was a horrendous experience, painful both physically and emotionally. Things weren't the same and I broke it off with him, sometime later.

The most difficult thing for me to talk about is this, though. In 2013, I met a guy. Wonderful guy-- the type that always made you laugh, and would give the shirt off his back for someone. We had a whirlwind romance that only lasted a few months. By the time I realized what was going on, I was already in love. He was addicted to heroin, after an accident in the marines that left him addicted to oxys. In the few short months we were together, I saw alot of horrible things, and did some horrible things. We were robbed at gunpoint, and it scared the living daylights out of me. I remember having a panic attack as he drove through the neighborhood, trying to chase the guy down, and almost crashing into a tree because he was drifting off at the wheel. At the end of August, he wrecked my Jeep, and I spent a few days at his house to recover. He proposed during that time. I went back to work a few days into September, and I could tell he was using again. He asked if he was going to see me again, and I said I didn't know. I walked out of the door. He used right after I left, and I got the phone call from his mom that he wasn't responsive. I left work and went there, and we called 911. He stayed in the hospital for a week in a coma, and on September 11, we made the decision to take him off of life support.

I now suffer, as previously stated, from bipolar disorder and PTSD. By sharing all of this, I just want people to know that no matter what you face, you can overcome it and get in a better place. I am now happily married, properly medicated, and living a good life that I didn't think I deserved. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and you can find it, too.

I now work at a methadone clinic, as a nurse. I see addiction and mental health issues everyday. I wouldn't change it, or my past, simply because I like where I am now. I want to be able to help others, either by sharing my story or just trying to help them through theirs.
 
I have Agoraphobia and Panic Attacks. It's hard for me to go outside and meet with friends because of this. I sometimes feel like I'm a prisoner trapped in my own home.
 
Omm, I have couple of things I've been diagnosed with. PTSD, severe general anxiety and depression and a strange one fractures in my nervous system. I won't type too much because I'm afraid of speaking about myself too much so I'll try keep it short.

Very unsure of myself is possibly the best description. I feel like quite a nuisance day to day and on had days I take myself away out of eyesight or hearing and try cope the best I can myself. I cant talk about what I feel or think properly because I don't want to upset or aggravate anyone so I keep it in . I'm not supposed to I'm supposed to look after myself better from what previous therapists and such have said. but I was never very good at that. I have a habit of putting others before myself .

I much prefer cheering somebody else up then telling them what's wrong with me =)

Ps I wrote a more detailed response but felt guilty and deleted it xD
 
I was recently diagnosed as borderline autistic. However I do have an anxiety disorder and I really hate the latter. The best way I could describe it as hearing video game combat music, but seeing no enemies. As for beine borderline autistic, I seem like a normal guy, I guess. I have niche hobbies and I just find it harder to make friends and interact with others.
 
I have social anxiety, with a tendency to become aggressive kind of fast.

I don't know how to describe it. Oh, wait! Imagine the "Jaws"-Theme playing in the background 24/7, and it get's louder when you have to, let's say, talk with other humans. Even when it's just a 30 seconds call to ask something.
 
If you want to hear what I have to say on this topic I don’t mind if you PM a question, personally I don’t want to share it in public but I don’t mind elaborating.
 
ADHD-C here. Also suffer from depression and anxiety, but I reckon they're caused by the ADHD anyway.

Having ADHD pretty much means you have one or a combination of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity, to the point of dysfunction. I have all three.

I've lived a life of 'You could be brilliant if only you tried harder,' 'You should apply yourself more,' and other comments about wasted potential. I've lived a life of extremes, and no in-between. Every now and then, something in my mind clicks, and I get a barrage of ideas. You'll see me literally pacing around the room -- I really, really need to pace and talk out loud when I'm thinking -- and dancing around grand fantasies that I know will never see the light of day. My ideas are always half-finished, half-baked. Maybe I'm just too ambitious. This is why I tend to stick to RPs, and barely ever write anything on my own.

Yesterday, I nearly burned the house down because I forgot about the thing I was cooking downstairs. My room is a pile of things: dirty clothes; clean clothes; stacks of books I've yet to read. There's always a 75% chance that when I open the microwave, there'd be something previously forgotten there. Usually, it's a coffee mug. I love caffeine, have been addicted to caffeine since my age was in the single digits. In high school, people joked around about how much I binged on Diet Coke. I typically had a fresh 2L bottle on my desk, and it'd be empty by the end of the day.

People think ADHD is all about having a short attention span, but it's not. I once wrote almost 20,000 words in one day because I was so immersed in the story I was writing (still unfinished years later, by the way). Unfortunately, it's not always productive activities like that either. Most of the time, it's video games or movies or a new TV show I just need to finish. I'd forget to eat or sleep. I have a nasty temper, and hate being interrupted. Thoughts and conversations could haunt me for days on end. Hyperfocus is as much a bitch as it is a blessing.

My problem isn't a short attention span. It's an inability to shift my attention efficiently between tasks. Sometimes, I can't sustain it. Other days, it just gets stuck on something.

I used to see a lot of procrastination-related memes on my Facebook news feed. My friends would post and re-post these things -- things that joke about how lazy or unmotivated or undisciplined they are. They always described me to a T. I don't think I ever understood how they probably posted those as a joke, so I always thought what I was feeling was normal. But in fact, to them, those things were exaggerated versions of reality (that's why they're funny, you guys!), but not for me. I wish I had understood that sooner. I barely see such posts on my news feed anymore. My friends have all matured, I guess. All grown up, and then there's me. I'm a living, breathing Facebook meme -- to be posted and re-posted and given internet likes and shares -- and truth be told, it kinda sucks.
 
Oompf there is a lot on my plate.

Technically I am diagnosed with depression and anxiety, but it turns out from my MMPI test, I am actually more on the complex PTSD side of things. I've had bad anxiety ever since I entered middle school and they stayed now as I am going through college. The depression feels like... like the days where the only thing you can hear are sad songs with violin in the background. Or not feeling at all. I don't cry, I just close myself in my bedroom and don't go out at all. It hits the hardest when there is something wrong going on or when I'm stressed; my last breakdown was because Kim Jonghyun commited suicide.

Anxiety feels like you're minding your own business when suddenly your brain is like "nah buddy, we're going on a trip" and flips with racing thoughts. To top all of that I also have schizophrenic symptoms and am a paranoiac.

Aside from mental health, my phycial health is all over the place. The docs are trying to give me a diagnosis on my chronic pain, and on my dizzy spells and headaches. So far, tests are negative.

But despite having messed up health, I try to keep my chin up. I love to joke around about it so it feels less real.
 
Where do I start? Major depression, generalized and social anxiety, insomnia, PTSD, pretty sure Borderline Personality (not diagnosed yet though), and smoking addiction. This may be a long lost, but I hope it helps a little.

I'm medicated for the depression, insomnia, and BPD mood swings now, but I'll still get episodes occasionally, especially if I try to go without a cigarette for too long (I'm constantly halfway between "I am so disappointed in myself for getting myself addicted and I'm worthless trash" and "It is what it is.") I'm asthmatic, too, so that should tell you how much I give a shit about my health.

The depressive episodes, after so many years of having them, just kind of...are. I can feel that sinking feeling in my stomach and the world around me starting to kind of fade out. Then it's like I'm just hollow, a shell of a person, and I just sit there like that because that's just the way it is at this point. I might have a smoke because the nicotine makes me feel fuzzy and heavy and my whole body buzzes for a few minutes and I can feel something, but besides that it's just kind of a hopelessness, "Oh well, here we go again. It'll pass eventually."

I can't make phone calls to people I don't know. Ever. I'll dial in the number, and then I stare at the phone for ten minutes shaking and sweating because I'm so anxious. I don't know what it is, maybe not having the visual cues in a conversation to tell what they're feeling when they talk to me? Not sure, but I can't do it. Sends me into a straight up panic attack.

And as for the BPD--everybody is angry. Tiny inflections in speech translate in my mind to anger. I can look into a completely emotional neutral face, and I see anger in it. That doesn't sound terrible, but it causes some issues when talking to friends or to my boyfriend, when I'm asking "What's the matter? Are you sure? Why won't you tell me what's wrong? Why won't you talk to me?" And eventually it actually does piss him off.

The mood swings aren't as nasty anymore thanks to a dosage of meds so high the pharmacist keeps asking if I'm sure that's right, but when I did get them bad, oh boy. Every tiny thing, those small vocal inflections, dropping a damn spoon, anything, would send me into a blinding rage or tears. On my "good" swings, I'd be so excited and jumpy that I didn't even want to sleep, and then on the crash I'd sleep for upwards of 18 or 20 hours (without the insomnia meds I can stay up for days. It actually kind of sucks).

Even now (although rarely) I'll still get dissociative episodes. I can't pin down a specific trigger, but usually it's in times of stress, and one of two things will happen: either my brain shuts down entirely and I just kind of sit there staring into space (I can see people waving their hands in front of my face trying to wake me up but can't respond; it's almost like I'm trapped in my body), or I get the opposite, where it feels like nothing around me is real and I'm actually outside my body. Sometimes my consciousness "goes" somewhere, but I can never remember where once I come back.

And the PTSD. I won't give details on the inciting incident in respect of possible triggers, but the effects didn't actually hit me until maybe a year after I got away from it. After that...it was mostly nightmares. I would either purposely keep myself awake until I actually collapsed, or self-medicate with Benadryl and nicotine, alcohol if I could get my hands on it, all in the hopes of sleeping without dreaming. After a while the Benadryl started giving me vivid nightmares of a different nature though so I had to stop that (turns out that "do not use to make children sleepy" label isn't fucking around).

I've been in therapy for almost five years now, and it's helped a lot, especially with the nightmares. I don't get them hardly ever anymore, although I'll still get one once in a while and wake up crying until I reorient myself with reality. I still shake even at the thought of beer breath and while I'm still close to my mother, I won't visit her house alone or after dark. (No it's nothing my mom did, just to clarify).

I haven't really mentioned the smoking addiction yet, but the first few times you smoke actually really fucking suck. You take your first drag, hack your lungs up because they feel like they're on fire, then you finally actually get a lungful, and it feels...okay. Then the buzzing starts. Like your whole body is just...vibrating, and you feel super heavy but lightheaded at the same time. Then you start shaking, and you get really, REALLY sick. But by the time you're stumbling around going "okay, I don't ever want to do that again," it's too late, and your brain already wants more. And so you end up standing in the freezing cold every day because your brain is convinced you need the nicotine to live, and if you try to quit you'll cough and cry and throw up and have the nastiest anger issues for weeks.

There's a saying about that, and, well, drugs in general: "First you do it for the high. Then you do it to avoid the low."

Okay I didn't mean to write a novel, but I hope this helps you.
 
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I suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder or what was commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder.

I would describe it like living in a very crowded house with a few people like we all share one room and have to share everything. A lot of different opinions and wants, desires, and dreams crammed into a very small room. Though I suppose to give it a happier spin you are never alone, while at the same time always being alone.
 
So I just want to preface this with my affliction isn't severe. I am overall an anxious person, and that's kinda challenging sure. Social awkwardness is s hurdle that hundreds of people cope with and get over. Okay. Fine.

What I do want to shed some light on is what it's like to support someone with clinical depression. The kind of depression that comes with suicidal ideation, hopelessness and worthlessness. I can't imagine being in such a dark place that you honestly feel the best option is to end it all. The thing that often goes unnoticed, and I don't intend this to draw attention from the more severe and glaring struggle of the person with depression, is think of the partners like myself. The ones who work double duty at home. Cook all the meals. Pay all the bills. It's 16 hour days. It's being forced to stay positive in a festering swamp of negativity. Not because you can but because you have to. Because someone depends on you. Living every single day knowing that the person you care the most about can't be made happy by anything you do. You've tried everything you can think of and then some. All you can do is keep the ship afloat.

It's like an endless struggle and you keep going because you aren't the one who's down for the count. Just keep at it, and hopefully, it will all be over soon. It honestly feels like you are with someone who's dying. And you want to console them and make it easier for them. But the best thing to do is just every day mundane stuff because they literally just can't. And you struggle with this every single day because it sounds and feels completely wrong to you. The hard part to accept is that clinical depression is not something you can help someone else through, it's a journey they can only ever make themselves. Supporting that person is just expressing your feelings to them and making sure their basic needs are kept up and taking it one day at a time.

Sorry if I got a bit rambly, it's hard to keep actual feelings concise for me. Hopefully, my input helps someone.
 
Apparently, I have a high chance of having bipolar disorder. Which, to be honest, is either because I actually have bipolar disorder or it's because of puberty and teenage mood swings. I am very irritable at times and I act like a completely different person sometimes, but like I said, puberty. I don't think I'm qualified to comment on this, but it feels weird not knowing. Mentioning this was probably unnecessary, but I'm bored.
I'm assuming that someone's going to instantly one-up the research I've done on BPD.
 
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