"We must, however, guard against the erasure of our experience and our lives. As white gays become more and more prominent–and acceptable to mainstream society–they project a racially exclusive image of gay reality. Few men of color will ever be found on the covers of the Advocate or New York Native. As white gays deny multiculturalism among gays, so too do black communities deny multisexualism among its members. Against this double cremation, we must leave the legacy of our writing and our perspectives on gay and straight experiences.
Our voice is our weapon."
I’ll Be Somewhere Listening for My Name, adapted from Melvin Dixon’s keynote speech delivered at the 1992 OutWrite conference in Boston, emphasis mine
Melvin Dixon (1950-1992) was a scholar, novelist, and poet who wrote extensively about the complexities of being a gay black man. Dixon wrote the poetry collections Change of Territory and Love’s Instruments, published posthumously, as well as two novels Trouble the Water and Vanishing Rooms.
Some of his poetry can be found here: Heartbeats, And These Are Just a Few…, Getting Your Rocks Off, Autumn Leaving
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It strikes me that even if we decided that all LGBTQ people were just mentally ill like the right want us to believe, the solution would still be acceptance and accommodation.
You would think so, but so many leftists in the west want to eliminate anyone who is mentally struggling or different unless they’re ready to conform.
first time i post here i hope mental disability is ok
A few days ago i read CPTSD: from surviving to thriving by pete walker (not completely, just a part I was interested in) and it described that being a workaholic or always needing your hands busy is a trauma-response trying to out-run the past by numbing it with busy-ness. I’ve been a “work or break down” type of guy for years and felt if i wasn’t actively creating something i’d feel even more depressed. I love this book.
It also said these types of people are very usually programmers, which, i also am that lmao. Directly got called out. I also do love this as a hobby, i just wish i had a healthier relationship with it.
All disabled people are welcome among us.
I’m not an expert on mental health mind, but while obviously a healthier relationship with this stuff is always ideal. Doing what you love to cope can’t be the worst way to cope, right?
Oh definitely, I’ve had/seen worse coping-mechanisms so i wouldn’t say it’s on the worst-side of things thankfully. What really sucks about it though is it makes you completely (i mean in everything, even basic life functions) burned out every couple of months after dedicating every day of your life to it unhealthily, and it hollows you out as a human being. Basically making your entire world and life revolve around creating/idleing yourself, and not much else. It makes you feel less than human. Sometimes you get so burned out you can’t stand seeing the things you loved (or still love, but as above, have an unhealthy relationship with it).
Thankfully i’m slowly getting better and trying to work on it
It also said these types of people are very usually programmers
wait that’s a thing?? i have CPTSD and am also a programmer lol. or i was, can’t find a job in it anymore and im probably too mentally ill to work anyway
i think i gotta read that book, i had a breakdown due to not having any gigs to do for a little while ago
Yep! Re-opened the book to get the relevant quote, but (apologies for the male-centric language, I forgot about those parts while writing the top comment lol):
The Flight-Freeze Hybrid
The Flight-Freeze type is the least relational and most schizoid hybrid. He prefers the safety of do-it-yourself isolationism. Sometimes this type may also be misdiagnosed as Asperger’s Syndrome.
The flight-freeze type avoids potential relationship-retraumati-zation with an obsessive-compulsive/dissociative “two-step.” Step one is working to complete exhaustion. Step two is collapsing into extreme “veging out”, and waiting until his energy reaccumulates enough to relaunch into step one. The price for this type of no-longer-necessary safety is a severely narrowed existence.
The flight-freeze cul-de-sac is more common among men, especially those traumatized for being vulnerable in childhood. This then drives them to seek safety in isolation or “intimacy-lite” relationships.
Some non-alpha type male survivors combine their flight and freeze defenses to become stereotypical technology nerds. Telecommuting is, of course, their preferred mode. Flight-freeze types are the computer addicts who focus on work for long periods of time and then drift off dissociatively into computer games, substance abuse or sleep-bingeing.
It’s a very big book and covers lots of parts of the CPTSD experience (not meant to be read linearly however) of both understanding and helping yourself. Here’s where I got my copy if you’re interested
really interesting. the only part that doesn’t apply to me is AFAB, but i also was kind of socialized in a more masculine way than most girls. though i think i also have a it of a fawn response which i think is more common in people raised as girls
feel called out as hell tho i remember one time i needed to veg out and explained to someone i’d be fine if i just took a break for a few weeks and they said that i couldn’t just rest my way to being alright and i said “erm, actually, i can!!”
…i think i’m in the overworking part rn so i should probably relax a bit ^^;
Welcome in! As a fellow CPTSD survivor I appreciate you sharing the book, this rings very familiar to me with needing to create things, or at the very least keep my hands busy with ‘work’ of some sort because of a constant nervous energy. I’m adding it to my ever-growing list
- solidarity comrade
It’s a really great book! It has two parts, one for explaining CPTSD’s behaviors and one for tackling it and I really love it. I’m happy you found the recommendation useful
So I need to find a new endocrinologist. My old one didn’t want to prescribe me the amount of glucose testing strips I need, even after my insurance said “Go ahead”, because if she prescribes “too much” she could get in legal trouble. I was pissed, so I wasn’t polite when I told her that she actually has legal security here and that I’m not asking for these strips because I’m bored. I even wrote up an explanation on how she can defend herself if the relevant institute wants to punish her for “prescribing too much”. She then told me that she felt threatened by me and thinks our doctor-patient-relationship is “irrevocably broken”. Now I have no supply at all, neither for strips nor for the other prescriptions or just flat out advice on how to handle the diabetes when it becomes rowdy. I’ve been crying for half an hour by now, I have done nothing to deserve this treatment.
But glucose strips aren’t expensive and there’s no risk of overprescription??? You can buy them in like multiple hundred set boxes!
Exactly!!
That’s such a shitty excuse for ridiculously innocuous request, and one that was backed by your insurance, too. That sucks, I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with that.
I wish some people just shut their mouth and listened. “Just wear better clothes, just care for your appearance, just get healthier (have a more traditionally desirable body), just have some more training” like I am tired man, i do what I can I am not going to marry, have kids, do a whole career arc just so I can have a pet, some friends, and freaking beans and rice. I don’t want anything from this package give me what I want or let me live on my own.
People constantly telling me to fix myself when spending a lifetime trying to fix myself has given me all kinds of health issues makes my blood boil.
Unsolicited advice is the worst. Live your life how you want to. It belongs to you.
That’s the thing, no one is going to let me, it is a weird almost Orwellian thing you can’t anywhere to learn to chill without being told how to improve yourself, all by people who never had to cure themselves of more than a cold or lose more than 5 kg of weight or people who literally tortured themselves to fit in be it
ED talk and autism talk
___cbt to “cure” autism or going on a fruit only diet and exercising till they vomit to lose weight
Like i don’t want anything let me freaking live then they’ll say “you’ll take from your community but you won’t give anything back because you’re sick all the time so your health is matter of public policy” like do you hear yourself? If change your ideology that’s literally a nazi talking point, it doesn’t make you one but it nonetheless makes this point a against the mission of liberating earth and its inhabitants.
It’s awful. I hate it too.
What angers me is that these same people never support assisted suicide. I don’t want to be alive, and they don’t want me draining resources, but do they support my right to a painless exit? No.
Exactly like at least let me die but no i need to torture myself be what they define as normal
Hear hear!
I feel that. It’s such a thoughtless, selfish thing to project those catered expectations onto someone, too. And they just straight up say it anyway.
Like I am not a standard student, I can’t give competitive exams… what am I supposed to do?
I really wish I wasn’t so utterly terrified of interacting with people. Life is just an endless sea of, ‘just do it, it’s not that hard, everyone else does it, why can’t you?’ even from myself.
Here for you my comrade
if you wanna talk you can pm me, no judgement no pressureAppreciate it, friend. Thank you for your work making this comm a safe place to express things
I’m honestly just appreciative this community, it’s the users who make this place special
I’ve started writing down some of the most memorable shit people say to me on the phone at work as a way to cope and it’s filling up an entire notebook
If you can anonymize it, I’d love to hear some of these!
Some of my favorites from this week:
“I’m very important at my [Financial Planning Firm] I’ve been with them 10 years and they all love me a lot.”
“No one can break into my phone without my face so I’m protected.”
“In order to get new emails I have to send myself an email, then I have to forward that email to myself again from the Sent folder, and that usually refreshes my messages to come through. I don’t know how to ‘refresh’ or whatever you said I don’t have a button for that.”
“Who in their right mind would have multiple emails? Most households only have one!”
“I bet some foreign country is hacking us right now! How can you be sure that they aren’t stealing right from under your nose! Prove to me that you’re not being hacked right now!”
“What’s a ‘credentials’? I don’t understand.”
Me: “Please click the ‘next’ button to move forward.”
Caller: “Nothing is happening”
Me: “Did you click ‘next’?”
Caller: “No because nothing’s happening yet.”
Me: “Try clicking the next button with your cursor over the button.”
Caller: “Okay.” * heavy 5 second silence * “Nothing’s happening.”
Me: “Did you click next?”
Caller: “No, is that what I should do? Nothing happened!”
In order to get new emails I have to send myself an email, then I have to forward that email to myself again from the Sent folder, and that usually refreshes my messages to come through. I don’t know how to ‘refresh’ or whatever you said I don’t have a button for that
Outlook?
Good guess! It was actually a Comcast account, which is a relic that I believe is in the process of being absorbed by Yahoo, an equally terrible email client.
I haven’t been very active here as I don’t feel too good, migraine flare ups. But my physiotherapy rehabilitation is making the issue worse. My achilles, for instance, has flared up terribly. Physio really is quackery, I don’t think they know what they’re doing. I just keep going because otherwise the DWP will use it as an excuse to stop my benefits at my next assessment.
It’s always good to see you around, have your surgery sites healed up yet?
Thank you, you too! It’s kind of hard to tell, they seem dried out but kind of yellowish in areas. I don’t know yet whether the yellow is pus, or remaining infection, or what. But they aren’t oozing any more. How are you doing?
Sounds like a little bit of progress at least. I’m doin alright, got called back into work again so they’re giving me hours, which is good for a bit of money but my goodness does it tire me out most days.
Glad you’ll be a bit better off financially, hope you don’t get too tired.
Thanks
Got yelled at by my boss today because I kept objecting to writing that a patient was aware and informed. They were too senile to remember if they could walk.
You should report all of that.
I am considering it. But I am a coward and this perosn could absolutely torpedo my career and there is a 0% of any meaningful repercussions.
You’re too good for that placeNo if I was too good I would actually be doing stuff except saying it’s bad and considering lodging complaints.
Annnnd first week of vyvance. I’m getting a really queasy stomach and am finding eating near impossible, and am getting a little weepy in the evenings.
I hope these are just temporary side effects and will lessen once my body gets used to it?
I hope so, my anti-depressens needed to be changed because my body never adjusted to them thankfully my psychiatrist was understanding I didn’t have to take another appointment and changed on a call.
Hang in there, love
definitely take it with some kind of protein in the morning. i personally take a chewable version with a few spoonfuls of soy butter (peanut butter or tofu or cashews or almonds would work too) and it helps me not have any disorientation and other unpleasant sick feelings.
you can’t really take it on an empty stomach but i found if i wait until after breakfast i’ll have trouble sleeping at night so that’s why i wake up, take at minimum one spoon of that soy butter then take my vyvanse first thing at 9am.
i’ve found theres not much to do about the crash though, usually happens around 2-4pm for me on most days. just a result of the medication wearing off but this all may be entirely different for you if you have the slow release vyvanse pills which i have not personally tried.
I got four different doctors giving me tips on how to win patient complaints today.
Well, the washing machine has broken. Can’t afford a new one, my landlady and I are both in debt and on a low income, local council isn’t offering much help. Due to my disabilities, lugging bags of laundry to the laundrette is unfeasible. I currently have a torn rotator cuff just from lifting a small bag as my left arm is so weak, and everyone knows the trouble I have with walking. Imagine me trying to carry a heavy laundry bag into town. Even if my landlady drove (when she’s here, she’s rarely here now anyway due to her daughter being so ill) how would I carry it from the car park? Can’t afford taxis. And with my skin and foot infections I really need clean clothes, I can’t put dirty contaminated ones on again the next day. If mutual aid doesn’t come through I don’t know what to do. Why is every day such a challenge? CS Lewis wrote about this in the Screwtape Letters. He said if you want to break a human’s spirit, it’s no good giving them one big challenge, they might be inspired to rise to the occasion. Instead you should give them neverending small daily problems, that will break them. Well, he is right.
Hope they can come through for you as well, love, laundry is such a physical task even when you have a washer to do most the work.
with the fact I can hardly use my left arm, don’t have full use of the hand, and can’t lift heavy things I don’t know how I’ll manage.
I’ve been considering posting in here for a few days, but I finally broke down and decided to post.
I am neurodivergent. I am both autistic and have Bipolar II Disorder. The former has never really presented issues in my life and, once diagnosed, I was able to very easily able to adjust. The latter, which was recently diagnosed, has proven to be a major disruptor in my life, wildly unnoticed and misattributed to non-existent ADHD. Due to the extreme disruptions in my life created by the symptoms of hypomania and severe depression, I have been practically unemployed for my entire life.
Lately, I’ve been struggling with yet another severe bout of depression and it’s disrupting my interpersonal relationships pretty badly. Not only do I hermit, cutting myself off from friends and loved ones alike, but I also have a tendency to lash out and push people away. It’s also a primary reason why I’m on my fourth account here, though my last account was deleted for other reasons I shan’t go into here.
The one thing I am curious about is this. For those that suffer from Bipolar II, do you also suffer from not only delusions, but also feel like a completely different person during depressive and hypomanic episodes? Cause, gods, do I feel like a wildly different person depending on if I’m hypomanic, depressive, manic depressive, or just neutral.
I’m pretty sure I’m undiagnosed bipolar. I won’t get a diagnosis as I don’t want to deal with the medical profession any more than I already do, or take any more drugs than I already do, or get taken less seriously by people than I already do. My depressive phase is almost permanent, so I feel like myself then anyway. My manic episodes are much less frequent and tend to centre around religion, suddenly I become really religious and terrified of going to hell. I still feel like essentially myself though, I think.
It’s wild how much it affects us, isn’t it? For myself, I just try to do everything and sleep like 2 or 3 hours per day, but don’t really have anything else going on during hypomania. Depression is where everything goes to hell with me as mentioned above. I sabotage personal relationships and imagine slights against me (or blow things up way more than they need to be). I’ve blown up probably a half dozen friendships and a relationship this way over the years. Though a couple of them (including the relationship) were really needed and I was just too timid to do anything about them in a neutral or hypomanic state.
EDIT: My gods I had a few typos and just incorrect words from swipe typing. I really have to re-read my posts if I’m on my phone.
Hey Moomoo I also got diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I can completely relate to the disassociation between different episodes and pushing people away.
My understanding is that there aren’t strict divisions between disorders, instead more constellations of symptoms, and I have a lot of symptoms between BPD, ADHD and potentially autism
Work stress basically kicked me into mania consistently so working is also virtually impossible for me. Those episodes and constant disassociation actually led to my diagnosis. I’ve tried talking to a doctor about potentially having dissassociative identity disorder but I think there’s a split in the medical community over it so I’ve been scared to talk about :(
Welcome in! I can sympathize with the severe depression and it affecting everyday life, though I’m not bipolar. After extended periods of those lows it can definitely make me feel like a completely different person, and that can snowball into affecting every aspect of life, relationships included
“My IRL friend did nothing wrong, except stop at Berlin.”
Made my best pottery piece so far today and the got reminded that I am disabled and am not able to do things the way everyone else can
My hands and arms just kinda stopped working and I couldnt center the clay anymore. It was really embarrassing because it was making this disgusting wet sound and I booked a studio session after the class to work on more projects and had to leave 20 minutes in.
I’ll probably be in pain tomorrow but im doing a bunch of stretches now to hopefully help speed up the resting process so Im not in pain on Monday when I have to work.
Hey man, you still made the pottery. Sure you have limitations, but you have a genuine actual tangible piece of evidence that you’ve got this.
I am proud of what I made, I think the internalized ableism kinda overshadowed my happiness at what I did manage to do before I couldnt anymore but thinking about it more overall it was a good day
I also stopped myself from trying to keep going and then fucking myself over for this week so not too bad
Is there any truth to the rumor that ADHD meds are being made worse on purpose or is that a conspiracy theory?
From my understanding it’s just a theory, but you never know with these things some times. I’m making an assumption of quality when you say worse, too, so apologies if I’m understanding wrong. I know here in the US batches of meds and different formulas for the same meds from different manufacturers can vary in potency or effectiveness, so user reports on them can vary quite a lot. I’ve encountered some theories that the persistent shortage of ADHD meds has led to less potent batches because they’re ‘stretching the ingredients’, but there’s been no evidence to back it up when trying to do surface level research.
When getting medication do you think it’s better to get branded or generic in that case?
It’s really dependent on the medication and the person, I think. For example when I was still on them I tried different antidepressants, one of them Prozac, and eventually the generic Fluoxetine and did way better with less side effects on the generic, but I knew people whose experience was completely opposite. I think your prescriber would be the best bet for info on the specific generic vs brand name. It sucks, finding the right medication balance can be a struggle that takes a lot time to test things out and get to that sweet spot that works for you. A couple friends of mine on ADHD meds have very different medication regimens, and they both need multiple meds to help counteract or compliment the side effects depending on the day, and that’s not even taking insurance or cost into account.
Thanks for sharing all that info!
