Cutest titty tattoo ❤️🔥
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)
Leaf
You are the promise I want to keep
Until my grave weeps.
You are the language I want to learn
Until our souls become one.
You are the melody I want to dance to
Till my legs turn blue.
For, you are my dose of insanity
Leading me away from sensibility,
For, you consume my entire being,
until I dream only of you again.
For, I am the river flowing with no aim
Tirelessly waiting for you to claim
Whole of me, now in vain.
For, you are in the canvas I paint,
In the poems I write
And The music I play.
Oh how you dominate my thoughts,
So much so that without you I am a body with no soul,
An ocean whose water overflows
And a star, bright no more.
For, you are the ocean I want to submerge myself in
The dream I want to conquer,
The air I want to breathe,
And the arms I want to call home.
A Kawaii pink version of fallouts please stand by
So what I learned about myself by researching these topics about abuse, collected from experts and therapists who work with complex trauma patients:
Betrayal Trauma is the name of what I went through in my household
Scapegoats are often betrayed by parents and I fit the scapegoat role
Scapegoats are often “truth tellers” and fight the family narrative
Scapegoats can be betrayed by one family member OR they can be betrayed by the whole family in which the family narrative is “we are all okay and right, and you (the scapegoat) is the crazy/wrong one.”
Scapegoats often have DARVO used against them (when the abusers in the family call the scapegoat the abuser, and the real abusers/parents call themselves the victims)
Scapegoat may feel betrayed, rejected, shamed, become a people pleaser, overly forgiving, may avoid relationships and end up isolating yourself from others
Some become dependent on the abusive family as an adult, slow to get ahead in life
Toxic shame is not just feeling ashamed, but YOU ARE shame (not really true, your brain lies to you). You think You Are Shame walking around on 2 legs. (How I feel and doing my research I understand it’s the trauma brain talking but I genuinely believe the lies). “I feel humiliated when I speak in front of others” “I feel humiliated for existing and taking space”
You could have had a fight response, challenge the abusers distorted, twisted view of reality. It causes exhaustion from challenging the family false narrative growing up. You may identify with being the “fighter.”
Family Systems expert Rebecca C. Mandeville explains adult survivors of Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA) are impacted by Betrayal Trauma. She also explains the consequences of being rejected, shamed, and blamed by the people who were supposed to love and care for you the most.
Dr. Erin Watson’s article: The Duel Layers of Betrayal Trauma for Survivors of Family Scapegoating Abuse.
concept: a room with no communication to the outside world. no one looks for you. you spend the days thinking of things to do, and dabbling in those things, and passing the time in the calm that is finally being free of social obligation.
I hold my loved ones close. I remember the people I’ve wronged and the people who’ve wronged me - I’m fond of their memory now, inexplicably. Outside, a spring storm rages, lightning and thunder crackling across the sky but only a smattering of rain to follow. I turn the lights off in my apartment and watch it with my cat, staring, side by side. A lightning bolt momentarily blinds me, leaving an after image. A white fork in the sky, now tinged a faint purple-grey. I don’t believe I am happy, but I wouldn’t give tonight up for anything.
‧ ゚。⋆ * ⋆. ౨ৎ ‧ ゚。⋆ * ⋆. ౨ৎ ‧ ゚。⋆ * ⋆. ౨ৎ ‧ ゚。⋆ *
it has gotten better before
and it will again ☆
‧ ゚。⋆ * ⋆. ౨ৎ ‧ ゚。⋆ * ⋆. ౨ৎ ‧ ゚。⋆ * ⋆. ౨ৎ ‧ ゚。⋆ *
BPD culture is crying your eyes out at 1am because you can't understand why it feels like everyone around you hates you or why you feel like a terrible person even though everyone around you says you aren't.
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