#personality-disorders — Public Fediverse posts

I think it's overdue that I tell you all these good news about my mental health.

But first a look back:
In summer 2019 I fell in love platonically. She reminded me a lot of my first love, a girl I was happily friends with for about two years and then got a depression after she found out I loved her and the friendship changed.
All the good and especially the bad feelings from the end of that past friendship came back immediately the first day I met the new woman. It was love at first sight but at first it wasn't even sure if the feelings were really for her or caused by the memory of my first love.
Anyway we became good friends, but the good and bad feelings stayed and by the end of the year I had developed a heavy depression, which stayed for over 4 years.
I won't go into detail about how bad it was (you can find some previous mh- posts on my profile, that haven't been auto deleted), because I want to keep this post (and the cw) positive.

Besides my depression I was diagnosed with social phobia and 3 personality disorders (dependent, avoidant and emotionally unstable). Btw dependent personality disorder has nothing to do with alcohol or other drugs, but, at least for me, with being dependent on other people, or another person.

The past 4 years were awful, but last summer it already got a lot better: I finally got over her. The depression didn't end, but it freed my mind and at least I got somewhat stable (except for one slip up). What remained though was my avolition, which actually had to get worse before it got better.
For a few months I couldn't get myself to do anything, not even post in the Fediverse. I didn't even touch my computer, let alone leave the house. All I did was play Pokemon on my Switch console and some really numb games on my phone, but only for short periods at a time, because I couldn't even motivate me to keep doing that.
I guess I had to reach rock bottom regarding my drive to then go upwards from there.

Mid January I started my computer again and did at least a few relatively meaningful things a day. Than a while later, still in January, I seem to have found a motivation-switch and started doing a fitness routine, which I still do daily. Being physically active motivated me to be more active in other ways too and that changed my mood completely. For about two weeks I described my mood as above average, which was probably because of the updraft. Now I'd say its average, which I'm totally fine with in my current situation.

My therapist got me thinking, if maybe my other diagnoses were just side effects of the depression, which could well be true:

About the social phobia: I now have a nice conversation with a (relative) stranger every day while dog walking. I feel a lot more confident while talking to other people, because I don't have such an abysmal self worth. And many people notice the change.

About the personality disorders: They say you cannot heal a personality disorder, only learn to live with it, but I don't think that's whats happening right now. I bet if I did a comprehensive diagnostic process like I did a few years ago I'd still have results that indicate similar differences in the personality from "the norm", but much less drastic. "Personality traits" instead of personality disorders.

I just definitely have a pathological psychic reaction when I fall in love and I can no longer keep my personality traits in check.
But I believe I'm much better equipped even for such situations than I was before and I mainly thank my new (since one year) therapist for that (deep psychoanalysis).

I don't want to jinx it, but if my situation stays like this for a while, I'm fine with that and I'll soon consider myself healed from the depression.

Sure there is lots of things that can still be improved: I have no money, job or education and no real plan about changing any of that. I have very few friends and generally no social net (which I really should have so when it comes to it, I won't put all my hopes and dreams into one person again and become extremely dependent).
And I actually wouldn't mind a sort of partnership for the first time in my life either. E.g. a queerplatonic relationship sounds nice.

#MentalHealth #GoodNews #positivity #depression #NotJustSad #LoveSickness #PlatonicLove #QueerPlatonic #love #friendship #SocialPhobia #SocialAnxiety #PersonalityDisorder #PersonalityDisorders #avolition #spoons #motivation #PsychoTherapy #PsychoAnalysis #DeepPsychology

No response yet from the Eldritch.Cafe mod team, so I'm going to assume they're looking into the matter, in which case I'm certain they'll see things my way.

Still, there's no point in stopping advocating for #survivors of #narcissistic #abuse, because I'm not going to stop speaking out about these insidious attempts by #narcissists and their enablers to reclassify their antagonistic #behavior as #neurodivergent.

So, today, let's talk about a specific case of where the two might actually mix. One young woman posted to #Reddit's "Am I the Asshole" subreddit to ask whether she was an asshole for making her boyfriend a "childish score sheet." The link to the #AITA post is below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/14t9cfw/aita_for_making_a_very_childish_chore_chart_for/

Her boyfriend, as far as she knows, is diagnosed with #ADHD, and he struggles to keep up with chores around the house. That makes sense; neurodivergent people with ADHD do struggle to keep their tasks in order and to get them done on a routine. Routines aren't habits we (I'm #AuDHD) can just internalize. They're things we have to actively think about and do, and this can be exhausting.

If you have ADHD, you get this. But you also know that you have strategies for getting things done anyway. You have sufficient empathy to realize that your inability to track tasks mentally can put an undue burden on others in your household, so you do whatever you can to mitigate your difficulties. You might ask for help by getting family members or housemates to remind you about things that need to get done. You might have lists that you keep on your person or in your room, or you might have apps that beep reminders at you when something needs doing.

My boyfriend and I both have ADHD (although my ADHD comes with autism and his doesn't), and we work together to help each other out both with chores in the house and for dealing with our other responsibilities. For example, I don't wait for him to notice something nice I did for him because I know that he won't. Instead, I'll show him what I did and allow him to respond appropriately to that thing. And he will kindly remind me of things that I need to get done and, as needed, help me plan out when that thing will happen and how.

But in this story from AITA, this young woman has tried all of these strategies and more, but none of them have worked. If you pay attention to the woman's story, you may notice that the strategies didn't fail because her boyfriend's ADHD is too severe. They failed because he invariably has an excuse not to do them. Apps would stress him out; OK. Apps stress me out too, so I don't do apps. Instead I do something else: email reminders, since I always check my email in the mornings, work very well for me. My boyfriend likes to have little get-togethers in the mornings to discuss what he needs to get done for the day; this is what works for him, and it doubles as nice partner hangout time.

So while my boyfriend and I have strategies to deal with the negative results of our ADHD, the woman's boyfriend in this story rejects any attempt to correct his behavior by any means. The woman also notes that he doesn't appear to struggle to accomplish tasks at work. To some extent, that makes sense, since work is a more structured environment. But most bosses won't give you reminders before reprimanding you, and they certainly won't make task lists for you, so one would imagine a girlfriend who does do that should be able to obtain some measure of positive result for her efforts. Also, #neurodivergence isn't context-dependent. If you're #kinetic (ADHD without the attached stigma of calling it a "disorder"), you're kinetic at work, at home, at the park, in the shower, playing video games, and while in bed. If, in fact, the young woman's boyfriend is more effective at keeping organized and task-oriented at work, one has to wonder whether his ADHD was misdiagnosed.

But let's assume that it was correctly diagnosed. Or that it was self-diagnosed, and we take the woman's boyfriend at his word that he is right to have done so (as we must to avoid gatekeeping behavior). Then the boyfriend's behavior would still indicate antagonistic, entitled behavior because he refuses to take any action in order to change anything about his current home situation. He is not motivated to change anything about the fact that his girlfriend must literally do everything for him because right now, he is being taken care of and does not consider this an issue.

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#personalityDisorders #pseudoScience #ableism #stigma #clusterB #psychology