I found these gifs I made a while back for a site that’s not running anymore, so I thought I’d post them here. It’s a description of psychiatric symptoms and states of mind using a pink box and some other stuff.
Tag: mental illness
Halting Schizophrenia Before It Starts
Schizophrenia typically starts in the late teens or early 20s. But if you could stop that first psychotic break, could you stop the mental illness in its tracks? Some doctors think so.
Living with mental illness means that on some days it will be even harder to cope and you might not be able to explain why. It could be because you havent slept enough, because a smell reminded you of feeling sad, or for no reason at all.
This is a reminder that we dont have to justify our feelings or abilities to anyone, just do whats needed to make it to the next day.
Neil Gaiman: ‘Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly. He’s angry’
Terry Pratchett may strike many as a twinkly old elf, but that’s not him at all. Fellow sci-fi novelist Neil Gaiman on the inner rage that drives his ailing friend’s writing … [read more] …
Terry Pratchett is not a jolly old elf at all. Not even close. He’s so much more than that. As Terry walks into the darkness much too soon, I find myself raging too: at the injustice that deprives us of – what? Another 20 or 30 books? Another shelf-full of ideas and glorious phrases and old friends and new, of stories in which people do what they really do best, which is use their heads to get themselves out of the trouble they got into by not thinking? Another book or two of journalism and agitprop? But truly, the loss of these things does not anger me as it should. It saddens me, but I, who have seen some of them being built close-up, understand that any Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle, and we already have more than might be reasonable, and it does not behoove any of us to be greedy.
I rage at the imminent loss of my friend. And I think, “What would Terry do with this anger?” Then I pick up my pen, and I start to write.
Mothering with mental illness
I am a mother with mental illness – one who is raising a beautiful, caring son.
Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation.
Depression is humiliating.
If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too.
Depression is humiliating.
No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.
Pearl (via psych-facts)
This is seriously the most accurate description of depression. Wow.
(via fake-that-smile-babe)
A Life Of Anxiety Documented
John Keedy used to be uncomfortable talking about his problems with anxiety, but not anymore. He hopes his series of photos will help others with mental illness see that they’re not alone.
The famous astronaut who defied odds – and gravity – by landing on the moon alongside Neil Armstrong in 1969struggled with depression and alcoholism after his inspiring feat. “I can’t recall ever sharing my pain with another male friend or confiding in anyone that I was struggling to hold life together,”he wrote in his bookMagnificent Desolation.“At first the alcohol soothed the depression, making it at least somewhat bearable. But the situation progressed into depressive-alcoholic binges in which I would withdraw like a hermit into my apartment.”
After treating his depression and alcoholism, Aldrin went on to serve as thechairman of the National Association of Mental Health.
Read More… These 12 Incredibly Successful People Will Change The Way You Think About Depression
If someone doesn’t “seem” disabled to you, maybe it’s because they’ve been forced to develop a huge and complex system of coping mechanisms in order to try and survive in an ableist world. It’s probably that.
Holding the Bowl 