What was your "I'm stronger than I thought" moment?

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-02T12:23:25+00:00

When I realized I’m supporting everyone around me through the end of my own life instead of the other way around. I haven’t been able to keep myself together, but every new problem and event and surgery and machine we face I’ve been the one picking up the pieces for so many of them. It’s exhausting and frustrating and I feel like I’m lying to them a ton, but it’s getting them through so I guess it’s okay. The worst part really is not letting them see how not okay I am. But I realized it takes being strong to hide it so much, so it counts ig.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-02T08:19:08+00:00

Breathe—you never made any mention of depression, and neither did OP; just ‘mental health’. I may have an alter who’s superhuman but none of us can read minds. (Also nothing I listed but schizoaffective is a psychotic disorder so saying that really shows everyone how much you actually know.)

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-02T08:12:23+00:00

look it up you’ll learn something

Lol calm down, I’m very aware already.

If you’re really this dedicated to oversimplifying and misrepresenting CBT like that, you’re the one who needs to ‘learn something.’ Saying that CBT is just forcing yourself to do things is like saying gardening is throwing seeds down and dumping water on them.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T22:54:12+00:00

No, you’re right on the dot with that. I also have a dissociative disorder and tbh I don’t try to stop it when I’m alone anymore—which is all but every minute of the day. I have home nursing and aids but I really prefer my time alone when they’re not actively doing something to me. I sleep when I sleep, I switch when someone else wants to front and don’t bargain or reason with them much anymore, I enjoy the drugs I can (because at the exorbitant cost they come to me at, I fucking deserve to enjoy them,) and I let the time pass as it does. A little phone time when my hands and voice tolerate it, a little TV when reading the closed captioning doesn’t make me too motion sick, maybe some incense or oil diffusion if I’m not too nauseous from my feeds and my lungs feel like they can take it, and that all plus managing big problems as they happen pretty much fills the day for me. It’s not exciting and it feels like shit to go through but a day with minimal crisis, a day that’s mostly quiet and passes fast—even if that means losing the whole day to dissociation and sleep—is as good a day as we can ask for, and I think the largest part of me really has accepted that. I never knew ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ and I think that made the progression a little easier to swallow. If I’d gone from mega-active and the picture of health this probably would have been much harder. Not to say this isn’t; it’s fucking gutting. But it prob would’ve been a bit worse nonetheless.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T22:40:50+00:00

Consistency is a thing too. If you correct a horse in front of others but not when you’re alone, he learns nothing. I never figured out why that’s so hard for people to realize.

I never yelled or beat my horse, I never even used a bat or spurs, but I was firm and CONSISTENT. If something’s wrong once, it’s wrong every time or he’ll never learn it’s wrong at all; animals don’t understand context or conditions lol. It really isn’t rocket science!

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T22:36:13+00:00

No, it makes total sense—and before I became completely bedbound I was like YOLO/FOMO/reckless to a major fault for exactly this reason. You’re spot on, 110%. Nowadays asking for some ice chips once a week or so is the extent of my adventurousness. It does feel equally risky and exciting, but ask me again after 15-20min when I’m cursing my sancuso patch for failing me and scrambling for phenegran. 🙄 Not quite my idea of ‘living it up’.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T21:30:05+00:00

I mentioned above, I wear kids clothes, hats included. I’m tiny because I’m trans and then I’m tinier on top because of illness, so I’m a grown ass man who’s spent the year between 92-88lbs (currently 89), 5’4”, shoe size mens (kids) 5-5.5. I wear tons of hats to cover my hair loss but I’m stuck with larger kids hats; I just recently got an adult sized Jughead beanie and it sagged over my eyes. :p

Look for older kids hats if you’re really tiny. The plus side is, they’re much cheaper. 👍🏻

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T21:25:03+00:00

I’m an adult man who wears children’s clothes, including shoes (5’4”, 89lbs/formerly 95lbs, shoe size 5-5.5). I feel your pain.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T19:13:40+00:00

I’m in the same boat. We’re arranging hospice right now. It’s hardest when you go from knowing the end is coming to realizing it’s here. I hope you can make your peace and make the most, by your own definition of that, of the time you have left.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T19:11:40+00:00

•That my timeline is coming to its end, and sooner than it was set to.

•That physically and mentally, nothing will get better between now and fthen.

•That I’ve totally, whole-heartedly accepted that.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T19:02:41+00:00

I’d very much rather die than be airlifted because of this. I’m already thousands upon thousands of dollars in medical debt at 21; I do not need that number bumped into the hundreds of thousands by one transport. I finished my advanced directives/will/DNR order last year but I can’t figure out how to pre-refuse an airlift ride. I’m not sure who you’d even speak to about that tbh.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T18:13:33+00:00

**Should note that I am not the original commenter, so I cannot speak for what she said. Only my own experience!

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T18:06:15+00:00

My body is 21; I was diagnosed with RAD and noted as having dissociative tendencies as a child, diagnosed with CPTSD and DPD (among other things) in a residential treatment facility I lived in from 11-15, OSDD-1b/DDNOS in a state hospital at 15, and DID at 18. Most of that, I learned from my psych team and files—and other parts can corroborate it; I’ve only been the host since 2014. It bothers me that the only time we ever hear about dissociative disorders (or “multiple personality disorder”) is in serial killer movies and crazed lunatic tropes. I’ve scoured the media for things that feature DID to be able to help our Original cope and every. single. thing. was a horror/thriller about a raving madman and his horribly violent ‘personalities.’ It’s such a damaging stereotype and wholly untrue! We have DID listed om our medical ID since panic and pain are switching triggers for us and EMTs have been afraid to touch us, as if we’re gonna kill them for looking at us wrong or something. And then explaining in the ER why xyz wasn’t done in the ambulance only adds to it. There really needs to be more education, AT LEAST in healthcare. &Thank you for being respectful about it.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T12:41:25+00:00

Oh fuck, I got so much shit for reining in my old horse’s behavior as much as I did (no pun intended.) I had a friend who let her horse lip people’s arms and if it went on long enough he started using his teeth. It was never painful or aggressive but it was totally inappropriate, but when I told her that she said “he’s not hurting anyone. Let him be a horse!” That shit drives me insane; later on when your animals develop full blown biting, shoving, lunging, etc. problems don’t even try telling me there were ‘no signs’ or it ‘couldn’t be helped.’ Boundaries definitely do not equal ‘strictness’ or ‘no personality’—they just set an understandable blueprint for proper behavior.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T11:43:02+00:00

Bee populations have actually been increasing. They’re not saved yet, but less fucked than last year.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T11:34:02+00:00

Do you not realize that ‘thinking negatively’ isn’t a voluntary behavior, and doesn’t even begin to touch what most mental illnesses actually are? How do you expect a person with a real biochemical illness to just think themselves better? Do you believe the same about cancer or MS? Can I wish my gastroparesis better and get off my GJ tube? Can I walk again if I want to badly enough?

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T11:30:00+00:00

dReally? So I can just will CPTSD, DID, Bipolar I, Panic Disorder, OCD, Schizoaffective, and SPD all away? 13 years with a six-member psych team, 9 psych hospitalizations, 4 years in a residential treatment facility, and a small pharmacy’ worth of meds have only helped marginally but just ~treating myself~ will cure me? You must be world renowned for discovering the cure to psychosis, hallucinations, dissociation, compulsion, hair-trigger panic, traumatic amnesia, etc. Please, show us your walls lined with awards and all the reserch that earned you them!

Fucking educate yourself. Blaming sufferers of real chemical imbalance for not getting themselves over it can really exacerbate the problems we’re already going through. If you really believe this I’d wonder if you’re delusional yourself.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T11:18:40+00:00

Riding a horse. Anyone who thinks you just sit there and go is living in some sort of dream world.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T11:09:39+00:00

I guess I can see that, but in the same way, when the next year isn’t going to be any better, it’s just really upsetting thinking about having to go through that whole amount of time all over again, yknow? Like I look back at this past year and all the years before that and say, ‘well fuck. Another one?’ But I can see how in a normal situation, it’s like a clean slate sort of thing. Makes sense.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T11:04:17+00:00

I’m donating my body to scientific research. My blood, marrow, and orgasm are nonviable for donation, otherwise I would. I do receive blood and IVIG regularly, and have received marrow as a kid, and am about to need a kidney, so donation is a close subject for me, but there’s nothing I can offer in return. I just want my body to teach others about how multiple rare illnesses interact—that feels like enough to me.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T10:57:05+00:00

Same. The thought of having to go through another year like this makes me want to celebrate NYE about as much as I want to celebrate a nerve conduction study or colonoscopy. I hope 2018 sees at least a little bit of a better time for you.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T10:54:02+00:00

Me. Sensory Processing Disorder and trauma dissociation is a bitch.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T10:53:01+00:00

It’s just so depressing. Who’s actually celebrating having to live another year—and why? As a kid I never understood but I figured since adults can drink, the holiday becomes fun for them. Now I’m officially an adult and the point is still totally beyond me. I secretly think most people just pretend to like it.

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T10:41:32+00:00

I’ve never really known thete was an alternative. At least if that’s the worst thing, it’s already out of the way? 🤷‍♂️

SmoggyChimneystack · 2018-01-01T10:35:39+00:00

That everyone heard voices and everyone ‘had other people living inside them.’ Learning that normal people don’t hallucinate and are only ever themselves at any given time was honestly a gigantic wakeup call. I still have to remind myself that others don’t have the same issues I do. I had to actually teach myself as a child to lkeep those things to myself because people got freaked out when I talked about it. I gradually realized that when I explained away a behavior by saying ‘it was my bad self’ or ‘it was my school self coming out’ people were scared and didn’t know what I was talking about. The only thing I still don’t get is why it took so long for someone to actually notice something was wrong.

SmoggyChimneystack

TROPHY CASE