MentalHealthMemes

When I was younger and researching the autism diagnosis criteria and symptoms, I thought “oh I couldn’t POSSIBLY be autistic.” Because when I read “takes everything literally” I thought it literally meant EVERYTHING and I was like “I don’t take EVERYTHING literally, just most things!” And I just realized the other day that it didn’t actually mean EVERYTHING and that was an overstatement.

#these tests always do shit like this#and its just like why would you phrase it like this when its specifically a symptom to misinterpret this (via @tbhliteraltrash )

ok hold on actually i rb'd this before with just tags but im going to come back in on this again

any medical diagnostic you will ever undergo does not mean "always 100% Every Time Ever you have this problem". And it sucks because they will phrase it in a way that SOUNDS like 100% Every Time including on the testing for being a person who has trouble with how specific phrasing is supposed to be.

literally the example I always use is I spent way longer without glasses then I should have because the eyesight chart diagnostic is "identify the letter", so I went 'ok the point of this is to do good identifying letters'. Then i realized

they want to know if I can see. Not if I can identify that a blurry shape is an A because of its unique outline.

So i started qualifying my answers with "blurry". Blurry A, Blurry Y, Blurry Z. Now I have glasses.

they do not make this clear. I do not know why. But you can more or less apply this to any medical diagnostic, and if it's a written diagnostic if your answer is 'sometimes' and the only answers are 'yes or no' you put Yes.

Do I have trouble getting out of bed? Sometimes, yes. So the answer is Yes.

Regrettably tests are made for and by non-autistic people and aimed at non-autistic caregivers and medical experts, which isnt how it should be, and makes it one more complicated thing to navigate. World a hell.

Similarly, if the answer is, "No, because I have a strategy," the answer is really yes. If the question is, "Do you have trouble being on time?" and your thought process is, "Not any more since I started setting four different alarms and putting everything in my planner as starting a half-hour earlier than it really is." the answer is yes, because you've had to use unusually complicated techniques to address the trouble that you have. Having figured out away to outsmart the problem means that the problem was there to begin with.

ooooooooooooohhhhhh noooooooooooooooo

I can't be autistic bc I'm actually great at understanding social cues!

[Cut to my POV, a Terminator-style overlay analyzing word choice and body language while over everyone's head a bar labeled Are They Mad At Me shows varying levels]

There are a number of students in my GCSE class that have behavioural issues and if they feel uncomfortable they can do anything from storm out of the classroom to throwing chairs and punching their tables. They’re great kids, they just dont always see the light at the end of the tunnel and when they are in stressful situations they dont know what to do other than lash out sometimes. They are 10 months away from their final exams and the pressure is being mounted on them in every aspect of their school lives.

Last week one of the students saw me making little origami stars. Its something I do when I’m feeling anxious to help me focus on something else. He asked if I could show him how to make them. He had been clenching his fists all lesson, which I’ve noticed is a tell that he is struggling to retain composure. I gave him a strip of paper and talked it through with him. Soon half of the class were asking me to show them. They all picked it up really quickly.

After about five minutes and about 8 stars later, the student sat back down and was in a much calmer and motivated mood for the rest of the lesson. Our next lesson I placed a box of paper strips on my desk and when I saw anyone getting worked up about their work I silently placed a strip in front of them and let them get on with it. The lesson after I was amazed to see that students would go up to the box of their own accord, pick up a few strips and head back to their desks to continue working after calming down.

Yesterday I brought a large jar into the classroom and placed my anxiety stars in there. The boys put their strsss stars in there too. When they fill the jar I’m going to bring sweets into the lesson to celebrate them working hard and working through their problems in a positive manner. I know I’m not the teacher they deserve just yet but I feel like I’ve made a big breakthrough with them.

art therapy is important.

You are exactly the teacher they need. It’s a brilliant idea and im so glad it works for them.

Op, post a tutorial?

OP, from the bottom of my heart, believe me. You are the teacher they need and deserve. I have tears in my eyes just imagining this. 

Thank you. Thank you for being one of the good ones. 

at first i picked up making these because it looked cool when my friend showed me

but after reading this, i realize that they’ve basically become anxiety stars for me as well. whenever i feel too much of one certain or way too many emotions, i take the nearest sheet of paper and cut it up, folding some tiny stars until i feel better

it helps, it really does

art therapy is so, so, so important. Kudos to OP for helping these kids learn a new way to deal with stress and create something beautiful from it.

I recently checked out Easy Crafts for the Insane: A mostly funny memoir of mental illness and making things by Kelly Williams Brown and the first chapter has these stars as the craft. I had seen the stars before but never particularly felt the desire to actually make any. Her repeated mentions of the little containers full of these stars made me curious enough to finally make some and I LOVE it! I started with a piece of scrap paper (I got 26 stars from one 8"x11" sheet) and now I cut some shiny wrapping paper into strips to make silver stars.

i wish this didnt suddenly become about diagnosis right at the end. the real solution is to trust and respect children, regardless of neurotype. neurotypical kids also dont deserve to be neglected

Sometimes it feels like everyone around me is speaking in a secret language and I'm the only one who doesn't know it.

They recorded tinnitus? It's a physical thing?????

Source

Transcript:

Does this hold true for others, too? This could be a game-changer.

Not diagnosing a child doesn't mean they won't notice they're different. It just means that instead of thinking "I'm struggling because I have autism/adhd/anxiety/depression/schizophrenia", they will just conclude that they are struggling because they are stupid, weak, annoying, unlovable, etc.

I can't stand parents who don't want to "label" their child.

I have all of the ADHDs, and I didn't have it confirmed and diagnosed until I was over 50.

I have trauma: it is not "big" trauma, it's smaller daily traumas where I always felt "wrong", layered over and over and over very finely, so now it's as hard and unbreakable as a Japanese sword.

I want to scream "LABEL THEM. ALL THE LABELS. I WILL BRING MY LABEL-MAKER AND ADD SOME MORE."

Sure, Diagnosis = Label. But also = beginning to understand = access to help and accommodations = now you can't be a dick to your child about their DIAGNOSED DISABILITY unless you are fully committed to being a dick anyway = child can now start doing their own learning about themselves (I learned so much from ADHD twitter) = being able to make choices about how to be in a world set up to maximise neurotypical success.

Or is the problem here that you don't want your own label as "parent of a neurodivergent child?

I feel this so hard. I was diagnosed at 33. I said to my mom “turns out I have adhd.” She says “oh I could have told you that.”

And I’m like “why the fuck didn’t you then???”

I don't think people in the notes understand what this tweet is saying. It's not saying it's impossible to be born with a mental health issue, but that the issue isn't set in stone. Bipolar disorder can be trauma induced. Schizophrenic people in less individualistic, more accepting societies hear kinder voices. These are actual things you can look up.

I thought for the longest time I would feel nothing but suffering because of the dominant narrative surrounding mental illness. My parents were literally told by a psychologist I am "a severe case" and have no future. But guess what? When I got away from my abusive parent, it was incredible how much became more manageable than before. I'll never be "normal" or even be able to live alone, but I feel better than before. And I need everyone to know there's hope for you when you never expect it, even if you were in part "born like that".

man I do think sometimes about how if I was just liiiiitle more dysfunctional as an autistic person, I probably would have been set up with life long aid. but instead my parents gaslit me into believing I was "too smart to be autistic" and prevented proper care and help. and now I have to embarrassingly rely on friends and my partner to put up with my child-like helplessness as I navigate this unaccommodating world.

it really needs to be normalized for "high functioning" autistics to be able to get professional life-long living assistance. I'm barely making it through this shit and it's a lot to ask my peers to help me through it.

As a trans man who has had to put painstaking work into body positivity, body neutrality, and my own sense of manhood, I can't help but feel so bad for men who have, seemingly, never felt permission to have any positive feelings about their body and their manhood.

Yes, body positivity and body neutrality are for you, men. You owe nobody washboard abs, or beautiful facial hair, or clear skin, or unblemished skin, or "masculine" features. Genuinely, you are under no obligation to perform any of it. The weight of those expectations is genuinely suffocating. Let yourself remove that yoke from your shoulders and actually live.