#cw mental health
pvrx:
heres the realest shit ever: literally no one is going to pressure you to do drugs in high school
literally no one
an encounter i had in 10th grade in a bathroom
person: hey we’re about to smoke some pot do you want some?
me: nah i got a test in like 20 minutes i just have to pee
person: alright good luck
actual highschool party I’ve been to
person: I brought beer!
people: aaaaaaa yyyyeeeaaahhh
person: want some?!?!
Me: no I don’t drink
person: GOOD MORE FOR US HERE’S SOME SODA
On the bus:
Dude: Do you want a cigarette?
Me: Dude I’m asthmatic. I’d die.
Dude: Okay, cool, cool.6th period math:
friend: hey, you want a weed brownie?
me: nah I’m good.
friend: cool.
Lunch
Some girl: You guys wanna smoke weed in the stairwell??
Us: not really
Girl: Okay friends, if you want any later my name’s Zoey, i always sit here
Guy: do you want a cigarette?
Me: I don’t smoke
Guy: good, don’t start
(that happened on multiple occasions with different people)
Seriously I was pressured into reading the Twilight books 1000x more than any drugs or alcohol
The last one
Adults would rather believe drugs are caused by peer pressuring teens rather than horrible situations developing kids are put into that drive them to seek out any sort of relief they can find. They don’t want to believe that they themselves are driving kids to do drugs.
Want teens to do less drugs? Provide accessible and cheap (or free) mental health support, get kids out of abusive situations, and use education rather than fear mongering when trying to deter teens.
This is more of a personal opinion, but I think legalizing weed would significantly reduce the use of harder, more dangerous drugs.
Contributing factors to substance abuse, at all ages:
Messed up family life, specifically things like neglect and abuse. Unresolved trauma issues.
Mental health issues, particularly undiagnosed ones or ones which are not being appropriately treated.
Chronic pain.
These are three of the biggest factors leading to substance abuse in EVERY age group. This is part of why the “war on drugs” especially in schools, is not helpful, because drug abuse is almost always a symptom of an underlying problem. Those problems NEED to be addressed in order to truly resolve the issue of drug use. Further ostracizing people who do abuse substances, and criminalizing the use of drugs is NOT the solution. It can lead to further trauma, further life stresses, and put people at a much higher risk of future drug usage.
Teens, and all people really, need to have access to appropriate healthcare, and ESPECIALLY for children and vulnerable adults, it needs to be something which is advocated for and pushed by people other than their guardians/parents. Because their parents and guardians are the most likely reason why they DON’T have access to proper treatment.
It probably says a lot about how bad my brain weasels are this year that I’m simultaneously going “writing 50k words for this story sounds pretty dang doable, actually” and “so. why. can’t. I. write. anything?”
BRAIN, DO YOUR JOB AND STOP FREEZING UP.
maybe I do have depression??
trying to study for the most important exams in my life while workers are drilling 2, 3, AND 4 floors below me at the same time for about 6 hours a day
and now i am getting berated by my family for being unable to focus because of “background noise” and not studying even though it’s my “final countdown”. my father also be criticizing how i can “listen to music while studying” because it was “meaningful sound” and would therefore take my concentration away, apparently
idk man please stop mansplaining about me and studying and whether i can concentrate over my own experiences. i am TRYING to do this no matter how “lazy” or “uncaring about my grades/future” i seem to be.
also i may or may not have undiagnosed adhd and go through severe burnout and executive dysfunction episodes. i also have been having mental breakdowns for 2 and a half years over these exams. do not fuck with me. the level on my “amount of fucks to give” meter is almost at negative values at this point.
had a dream where I was definitely word spilling to a psychiatrist last night
live laugh lamotrigine <3
[Read Time: ~6 minutes]
I want to talk about something that came up in discussion with my partner earlier. I think other people might run into the same issue.
We were in conflict over how she’s been booting a lot of intellectual labor to me without asking and as we were talking, she kept saying something along the lines of “but I’m thinking the right thoughts.” I replied “yeah but I think you’re acting from some crappy beliefs.”
So she asked me point blank “so can I not use these thoughts to undo the beliefs I don’t want?”
And I was admittedly kind of confused for a moment because if you ascribe to pure CBT - or hell a lot of current mental health modalities floating around - the answer should be yes. You think new thoughts enough, you change how you feel, and you behave differently. You have experiences that confirm those thoughts and then they become beliefs over time.
In theory.
But when I was thinking back over my own experiences that’s not what I was remembering about moving past a similar beliefs. In fact the “but I’m thinking the right thoughts” loop had gotten me completely stuck. Because “thinking the right thoughts” was not rooted in some deeper belief to begin with, it had nothing more substantial to take root in than my own insecurity. So I was “thinking the right thoughts” in order to be loveable, in order to obey my therapist and not be called uncompliant again, in order to be technically correct as a form of protection.
But when I wound up protecting myself from most was myself - the shitty bits that I really wanted to change. So the truth was I couldn’t use those “correct thoughts” to change my self centered beliefs.
I had to meet my own unmet needs so those “right thoughts” didn’t need to bubble up to protect me in the first place. I had to use boundaries to protect myself as much as I reasonably can and let go of the rest. I had to love myself in an unrelentingly compassionate and boundaried way - understanding why I’d done things while knowing I needed to do better in the ways I could and having the wisdom to know what ways those were. And personally, for me, I had to step away from the mental health system for a while because it was doing far more bad than good.
When I did those things, then I could go back to the shitty beliefs and neither affirm nor repel them. I could just sit with them, get to know them, understand where they came from and how they’d settled in so completely. I could ask questions that began to knock loose their hold.
“I mean I fully get that I’m important and I deserve good things, I’m with you there, but what if the good things I want interfere with the good things other people want? Shouldn’t we try to work it out and bend a little or go our separate ways?”
“Maybe” said the Selfishness, “I mean…I don’t know, maybe.”
Given that this conversation came up in the context of labor, my partner and I were naturally talking about issues that come up a lot on the Left where cancel culture is still very much in prevalent.
Cancel culture places a big emphasis on “having the right thoughts” and I’m sure that’s also where her “but I’m having the right thoughts” got reinforced too. It can be extra activating to the nervous system when the threat of total social separation and targeted harassment is on the line.
She mentioned wanting to feel loveable through her thoughts - all this attention going to her thoughts and not her actions. I mean I get it to a degree. Because in cancel culture saying one wrong thing can mean the end of everything. But actions don’t always get a person targeted the same way.
So even if you don’t have access or choose not to engage with the mental health system you still might be having this block come up in your shadow work. Having come up in a time where it wasn’t as invasive and being rural meant I was less online than other folks - I seem to not be as taken in by it (though definitely not exempt) so I don’t remember right now if I consciously had to work through this block with relation to shadow work.
If I was going to though, I’d probably limit my exposure to people who put out content that’s heavy on cancel culture themes - “calling people out” especially when not providing proof, participating in or cheering on public harassment campaigns of canceled folks, praising themselves for blocking a canceled person’s access to community, etc. I’d try to find people who are talking about treating the self and others in compassionate but firm ways and what a future beyond cancel culture could look like.
I’d pay especially close attention to the judgements and beliefs I have around canceled people as that’s where it’ll be easiest to talk to the block and ask it “What do you really want and does canceling actually give it to you?”
Basically, if you’ve been trying hard, “thinking the right thoughts”, and you’re still getting no where. It’s okay. You’re not doing it wrong. But it is a good sign that deeper foundational beliefs need nudged.
So, what do you do in the meantime, while those beliefs are slowly changing and the foundation is being built up? Ideally, you have boundaries with yourself if you’re able. You avoid certain topics in conversation where you’re likely to be insensitive or hurtful. You just full stop do not engage in certain behaviors you have trouble moderating. The goal is limiting the damage to yourself and to your relationship while you work thought it. Is this easy? No. Will you always succeed? Also no.
But, in my experience at least, it’s the only option that both allows you to have the space to process your shit and doesn’t require you to blow up your whole life to do it (not that I’ve ever done that -cough-). And support and subtle (and some times direct) feedback from people who care about you really does make the whole process a lot easier.
We all have absolute shit beliefs and desires in our heads. But we also have the ability to clean things up a bit, to not spend our whole life running away from them, get to know them, sit them down, talk things out, decide whether we want to make decisions with their perspectives or not. And that’s absolutely not a process you can engage in with the correct™ thoughts. You gotta meet your beliefs where they’re at. Policing them will do fucking nothing but being kind, gentle, and firm is still necessary.
Not sure is that’ll help folks out but I know it was revelation for me a while back and it seemed to be to her. Manage speech and behaviors now and get to know your head. The former practice really helps the latter practice. I know very Buddhist of me but what can I say - it helps.
Here’s dump of something I could call burnout comics from the past that I used to post to facebook. CW whining and venting and mental health. I just didn’t want to set up any new place for these - but maybe they’ll be alright here on tumblr.
Mentally I’m slightly in a better place, strictly speaking of drawing confidence and how to manage “your one passion turned into a job”. Rediscovering the joy is a process but I feel like there’s been some victories in it. I’m certainly not alone in struggling with identity = art productivity, but what helps and resolves that for everyone is different. For me it’s about being more forgiving to myself and allowing myself to be cringe and bad at drawing, try not to think about too much how others see my art. Letting go of idea that I always need to surpass myself and that every piece needs to be better than the last. I still do worry but whenever I find something that is simply fun for me to do, I try to value it more and not be embarrassed about it.
My church leaders gaslit me. Now I’m gaslighting myself.
“The heart is deceitful above all things,” my church leaders would often say, quoting Jeremiah 17:9. But rather than mentioning the following verses, which addresses God’s omniscience and the fate that awaits those who “gain riches by unjust means,” they warned us middle schoolers that, despite what our favorite movies told us, we can’t “believe in ourselves” and “be true to our heart.” Doing so is sinful.
It’s been more than a decade since I stepped foot in that church, but I still carry the lessons I learned there. And to this day…
- I don’t trust my own instincts
- I minimize my spiritual struggles
- I doubt my ability to interpret the Bible
- I freeze when making the smallest decisions
- I try to talk myself out of experiencing negative emotions
Ironically, I stumbled upon this article while writing this post:
What is Healthy Faith vs. Spiritual Bypassing? - Alison Cook, Ph.D.
In the midst of this revelation that I’m gaslighting myself (and still have a long road of spiritual healing ahead), I am…
- dealing with shifting family dynamics
- having to set boundaries with people who do not affirm me, and contemplating cutting formerly close friends out of my life
- working for a company that does not value me, my coworkers, or our clients, and contemplating a career change in the midst of a “labor shortage” and the “Great Resignation”
- living through Year Three of a pandemic, and processing news about a highly contagious variant anda change in CDC guidelines for staying safe
To say I’m facing uncertainty is an understatement.
All this to say that I’m attempting to be open and honest about my struggles. I don’t have any words of encouragement today, nor do I want to anticipate a future that God surely has in store. What I do want to do is acknowledge that I’m going through a lot and that I’m taking things day by day—the greatest act of faith I can do right now.
