I go to seek a great perhaps.
~ Francois Rabelais
Witches garden
What if I just started going by a different name and pronouns and had different likes and ideas and memories and opinions and presented differently and acted differently... but like I'm still me though... no I'm not a system at all...
these are all individual posts that I have written about my own journey with healing from an abusive childhood✨
How To Find The Right Therapist For You
How To Stay Organized & Make Your Appointments Through Dissociation Fogs
Recognizing Abuse: Emotional Takeovers
Recognizing Abuse: Parentification
Recognizing Abuse: Triangulation
Redefining respect after abuse
How to recognize when you need to set a boundary
Sexual boundaries & things to know before getting into a relationship
Love vs obsession
Coping with overwhelming feelings, flashbacks, & memories
Healthy Coping Skills & Activities for Releasing Anger & Other Negative Emotions
Understanding grounding & dissociation on a deeper level
how to actually feel ur feelings
how to tolerate being alone with your thoughts
when showering & hygiene is too hard
how to set better goals
Healthier ways to communicate
The root of all healing work (tldr it's ur childhood 🎉)
Attachment theory healing (codependency, enmeshment, & BPD FP attachment)
Attachment & abandonment wounds (BPD FP)
In order to heal you must grieve
What is "inner child healing"?
How to be kinder with yourself
Unlearn what they taught you
Reframe your anger
Reframe the process of moving on
Focus on what you can control
affirmations for reclaiming your voice around authority figures
affirmations for RSD
affirmations for feeling ur feelings
affirmations for healing codependency & attachment (BPD FP)
things I wish I knew before I started healing
things your inner child needs to hear
you are normal
slow down and take a deep breath
you can move now. you are safe.
you need to hear this (trust me)
the very first hard reality you need to face
the second hard reality that's gonna hit you like a train
the third and worst hard reality there is
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
Looking forward to updating the list as we grow 🪴
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
i have done so much research and i have a theory that women with autism/adhd/bipolar + trauma = a bpd diagnosis
REFERRING TO YOURSELF AS I DURING SELF TALK ISNT NORMAL!?! Huh
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🐥 Birds: freedom, hope, escape 🦁 Lions: strength, courage, royalty 🐶 Dogs: loyalty, devotion, protection 🐱 Cats: independence, stealth, mystery 🐺 Wolves: intelligence, nature, wildness 🦊 Foxes: cleverness, cunning, deception 🐍 Snakes: temptation, evil, deceit 🦋 Butterflies: transformation, change, new beginnings 🦉 Owls: wisdom, knowledge, mystery 🦅 Eagles: strength, freedom, nobility ◾ Ravens: death, mystery, the unknown 🕊️ Doves: peace, love, purity 🐻 Bears: resurrection, strength, power, new life 🤘 Bulls: virility, sovereignty, wealth
As a late diagnosed autist I will say one of the most damaging but transformative experiences I've ever had was being misdiagnosed with BPD.
Everyday my heart goes out to people with BPD.
The amount of stigma and silencing they face is astonishing and sickening.
I took DBT for years. Therapists use to turn me away because of my diagnosis.
I would be having full blown autistic meltdowns, crying for help literally - but because I was labeled as BPD ANY time I cried I was treated as manipulative and unstable.
As if the only reason I could be crying was if I was out to trick someone.
95% of the books out there with Borderline in the title are named shit like 'How to get away from a person with Borderline', 'How to stop walking on eggshells (with a person who has BPD)'
I was never allowed to feel true pain or panic or need.
That was 'attention seeking behavior', not me asking for help when a disability was literally inhibiting my ability to process emotions.
There were dozens of times where I had a full meltdown and was either threatened with institutionalization or told I was doing it for attention.
My failing relationships weren't due to a communication issue, or the inability to read social cues. No, because I was labeled borderline, my unstable relationships were my fault. Me beggong nuerotypicals to just be honest and blunt with what they meant was me pestering them for validation.
Borderline patients can't win.
And the funny thing is - I asked my therapist about autism. I told her I thought I was on the spectrum.
BPD is WILDLY misdiagnosed with those with autism and I had many clear signs.
Instead - she told me 'If you were autistic we wouldn't be able to have this conversation'. She made me go through a list of autistic traits made clearly for children, citing how I didn't fit each one.
And then she told me that me identifying with the autism community was the BPD making me search for identity to be accepted - and that I wasn't autistic, just desperate to fit in somewhere.
I didn't get diagnosed for another ten years. For ten years I avoided the autism community - feeling as if I were just a broken person who wanted to steal from people who 'really needed it'.
Because of my providers - I began to doubt my identity MORE, not less.
Ten years of thinking I was borderline and being emotionally neglected and demonized by a system meant to help me.
To this day, I still don't trust neurotypicals. Not fully.
I know I'm not borderline now - but my heart aches for them. Not for the usual stuff. But for the stigma. And the asshole doctors. And the dismissiveness and threatening and the idea of institutionalization hanging over their head.
I love Borderline people. I always will. I'm not Borderline but if you are I love you and I'm sorry.
You're not a bad person. You're not a therapists worst nightmare, you are a human with valid feelings and fears.
Borderline people I'm sorry.
i dont like to talk about self-diagnosis because i dont enjoy people making assumptions about me, my illnesses, and my diagnostic status. but i will say:
i have self diagnosed and gone on to be medically validated with an official diagnosis. multiple times actually. i was never wrong about my self-diagnoses.
however, i have been misdiagnosed by professionals FIVE TIMES. and let me tell you, a professional diagnosis being wrong is far more harmful than a self-diagnosis being wrong.
if your self diagnosis is wrong, maybe you used the wrong language or put yourself in a box or now feel invalid and whatnot. but if your professional diagnosis is wrong, it can lead to abuse, medical trauma, panic attacks, issues with medication, even suicide.
i was misdiagnosed with BPD when i was 15 by a psychologist that i spoke to for hardly even 10 minutes. this diagnosis was based on my parent's description of my reactions to abuse, and the diagnosis was used to validate and excuse their abuse.
i was misdiagnosed with MDD when i was 12 and put through several different types of anti-depressants. we never found anything that worked, because it was actually ADHD and dissociation, but i did end up with panic attacks and insomnia all throughout middle/highschool!
when i self-diagnosed with autism however, it saved my life. it took me out of active suicidality because i was able to finally able to accept myself after years of feeling like i am just "being a person wrong". i had the knowledge to accomodate for myself and the language to advocate for myself. this was life changing. even if i was wrong, which i wasnt, i dont see how it couldve caused any harm.
my opinions on self-diagnoses arent black and white, and im not entirely settled on them either, but i do think this is important to understand. doctors and psychologists are not all knowing. we live in a time where we can access thousands of dollars worth of university level education on the internet, even the same exact resources medical students use. plenty of people are capable of interpreting themselves and that information to come to a conclusion about what they are experiencing and what might help.
sure, self-diagnosis might be biased. but a professional is most likely going to be just as biased, and possibly less aware of it. its just silly to use bias as a primary argument when it is an inescapable feature of human psychology. there is a reason ADHD is underdiagnosed in women. there is a reason anxiety disorders are underdiagnosed in men.
an incorrect self-diagnosis wont take away resources or your space in your comminities. but professional misdiagnosis can cause real damage.
(i am not trying to fear-monger about professional diagnosis, moreso responding to the fear-mongering surrounding self-diagnosis)
pens scared me as a kid. a pencil that you cant erase? thats fucked up shit to do to a kid man