Did You Enjoy Reading As A Child? I'm Sorry To Be The One To Tell You This, But The Cherished Hours You

whats the ice cream bar approach ?

So, @bipolarings has a post talking about this a little already, but I'm always happy to be given an excuse to blather about brains :D

The ice cream bar/sundae bar metaphor was originally created to describe the autism spectrum, but it works really well for other things too, including bipolar disorder. I'mma adapt it a lil bit here, in fact, to make it work even better. Yay me.

The principle is this: instead of trying to divide up bipolar disorder into I/II/NOS/etc, or classify it as 'severe' or 'mild', picture it as a sundae bar.

Now, every day, you make yourself a sundae. You can take as many toppings as you 'want' and as much of each topping as you 'want'.

There are some toppings that go well together, so, for instance, if you take a lot of euphoria there's a good chance you'll also get some hypersexuality, some delusions of grandiosity, some creative drive, some ambition, some psychomotor agitation. And that would be called a 'manic episode'. You could get somewhat less of each, maybe leave off the delusions of grandiosity, and people might call it a 'hypomanic episode'. Even less and people might call it 'euthymia'.

But the thing is, you don't have to get it that way, and you can take any amount of each! So you might get low mood but a lot of psychomotor agitation, irritability, and disregard of consequences. Or you could get a huge amount of emotional numbness but combine it with the stuff other people like to put with euphoria. Or you could get just a bit of low mood but spice it up with hallucinations and delusions (other). Or you could get a lot of delusions of grandiosity but only a tiny amount of euphoria.

And what you get one day doesn't determine what you get the next. You could spend years getting nothing but the 'hypomania combo' and the 'depression family-size' and then one day decide to dump the entire bowl of euphoria in your cup and top it with so many delusions it starts to spill over the sides. Or maybe you've only ever gotten small, carefully curated sundaes with a healthy amount of two or three toppings but today you just tell the server 'fuck me up' and get some of absolutely everything.

Without all the metaphor:

While certain sets of symptoms commonly appear together, and are then labeled 'mania', 'hypomania', 'depression', or 'euthymia', symptoms don't have to appear in those particular combinations. (Also the DSM isn't necessarily even right about what combinations are common.)

You could also have different proportions of symptoms than someone else does. (And that doesn't necessarily make your disorder or theirs automatically more 'severe'.)

Even if you do only get common combinations of symptoms, that says nothing about how 'severe' it is. If you get an enormous amount of emotional numbness, lack of motivation, executive dysfunction, suicidality, paranoid delusions, and disregard of consequences, continuously for 98% of your adult life; and someone else gets one (1) single 3 day long episode with a medium-sized serving of delusions of grandiosity, hallucinations, and disregard of consequences; they'll probably be diagnosed with Bipolar I and you with Bipolar II, but your life is probably being affected a lot more.

What symptoms you get can also change, which can include changing from what a psychiatrist might call 'Bipolar I' to 'Bipolar II', or 'BP-II' to 'BP-NOS', or whatever. You haven't magically gotten a new disorder. You just got a different sundae today. You're still eating at the same sundae bar.

this is so petty but i hate how bipolar is treated like one of the big scary disorders but never talked about as one. people on here will talk about ending the demonization of ‘scary disorders’ like personally disorders and schizophrenia and did but not include bipolar despite being seen and treated by the general public as a ‘scary’ disorder. I had a mental health advocate tell me bipolar doesn’t count because it’s a mood disorder and therefor treated the same as gad and depression and i just. have you met a bipolar? listened to our symptoms? have you listened to doctors talk about us? our abuse rates? our suicide and alcoholism rates? the distain the public has for us? just include us in your positivity and advocacy please. im not asking for much

HAPPY ADHD AWARENESS MONTH YALL!!

you are so valid!!

your traits/symptoms are valid!!

your experiences are valid!!

self-dx is valid!!

executive dysfunction is valid!! 

nonmedicated ppl are valid!!

medicated ppl are valid!!

autistic + ADHD ppl are valid!!

stimming is valid!!

hyperfixations are valid!!

comorbidities are valid!!

all ADHDers are valid and your efforts don’t go unseen!! keep up the great work funky neurodivergent ppl!!!

reminders for dealing with intrusive thoughts:

you are not your intrusive thoughts, they don't make you an awful person (i promise)

your fear and disgust towards your intrusive thoughts shows you acknowledge that those things are bad, therefore you'd most likely never act on them

you are not dangerous or disgusting or "insane"

you are not alone

it will be okay

your loved ones will be okay

you will be okay

bipolar pride flag: for when you’re fuckin bipolar baby!💖💖💖💖

ive been wanting to take a swing at making this kind of thing for ages, and since im manic I figured i’d do it!

color explanation under the cut

Keep reading

my adhd ass when someone says something and expects me to be able to comprehend it the first time

"I support people with POCD as long as they seek help and don't act on their urges" people with POCD don't HAVE "urges" they have intrusive thoughts that they are disgusted and horrified by and would never act on, please learn the difference

Though the jokes that "since gay pride month is over, july is now gay wrath month" are funny and all, it's important to remember that July is ACTUALLY Disability Pride Month and ya'll should really be focused on boosting disabled voices and issues this month! For instance, the fact that marriage equality doesn't actually truly exist in the United States for disabled people, or the fact that disabled people are forced to live in poverty or lose their disability benefits, or the fact that 1 in 5 people with chronic pain end up sufferring from alcoholism or other addictions, or how accessibility is still a daily battle for all of us, or how there are active hate groups on places like reddit who try to "call out" those they see as "faking" their disabilities.

This July, boost disabled voices. Talk about the issues that our community faces. Call out ableism.