Gentlethem

  • 8 Posts
  • 94 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • I have a relative who was a brilliant student in school, studied law, moved to China, learned the language, always very high achieving and motivated to succeed in what ever she chose to do, seemed like she was aiming high career-wise, then she met an arab guy, turned muslim to marry him, got two kids, as far as I know is a house wife now. They live in the Emirates so life must be very restricted for her. We are not close but it was quite surprising that she chose a closed life and conservative religion instead of career. But like said, I don’t know her enough to know her side of the story, but I’m sure she’s happy with her life.

    A friend of mine, when I first got to know him, didn’t strike to me as a person with many goals in life and was at that point unemployed and living with his cousin, hadn’t really studied, wasn’t doing much anything. Well he got into gardening, wen’t to career school to become a gardener, one day he decides to become a landscape architect and study in the most top tier university in the country, so he just studied to the entrance exam like hell, failed a couple times and kept on pushing and finally got it. Very proud of him. Not the easiest path if you come from career school background. Also how the hell can someone be so motivated to bang their head onto the wall until they finally succeed?!


  • When I was younger I was offered a gig to help disassemble an abandoned cottage by hand. Turns out it had burned from the inside when a fire had spread from the fireplace - somebody had went inside to try and keep warm in the winter and ended up burning themselves and the cottage. What adds some spice to the story is the fact that in the past the cottage was a “troll’s hut” funfair kinda thing where kids, myself included, went to meet the “forest troll” and do some drawing etc.

    Had nightmares about it for quite a while.









  • Oh boi this is so relatable. It seems that I’ve been running on anxiety my whole life.

    For me it seems to help that I find validation and reasons for those feelings (eg from videos explaining why ADHD or CPTSD causes such behaviors and thought patterns) and through that understanding internalize that there is always a reason for everything and no, the reason is not that I’m a shitty person.

    Allowing myself to stim helps, I didn’t even realize how much I’ve been blocking it.

    I think the most noticeable help from the meds is in social situations, but also the fact that I can always “play the AuDHD card” helps - given that the people are safe enough to reveal this diagnosis.

    I process thoughts and feelings by doing physical things so evening walks are super important to clear some of the chaos inside my head.

    My SO is also on the spectrum but in a way opposite of me that they don’t really have strict rules and schedules to keep their life together like I do, so we learn from each other: I try to give more space to things that cause me anxiety and over all loosen my grip, and they try to create more structure in their life.

    Also conscious choices on what to ruminate and what not is sometimes helpful: do I REALLY need to think about this right now?

    If I’m full of chaos or anxiety when I go to bed I have a conversation in my head with an imaginary friend that will validate my feelings and experiences and tell me what I need to hear. It gives a different perspective which can be helpful.

    So many things yet to understand and the re-learning is just in the beginning, but even so it feels like a big change already! The years of neglecting myself have taken their toll for sure but I hope there’s still hope left.





  • This july I finally realized that I have no choice but consciously change the ways I think and react to things. There has been plenty of difficult things in my life the last couple of years and after experiencing a burnout (again, I understood afterwards it’s not the first time but hasn’t been this bad before) this summer I had to look myself in the mirror and decide to start making changes, things can’t go on like this anymore, I can’t keep on living like this anymore. It’s sad that it seems often these realizations only come when one hits the bottom in a way or another.

    I’ve been to a 3-year therapy and tried meds and so on, I’m sure they “paved the path” but didn’t help me comprehend why I have these troubles that I have and didn’t give me the understanding/empathy towards myself and others that is needed to actually change the thought and reaction models that are problematic, especially anger and shame issues.

    Anyways I’ve been looking at videos on youtube about CPTSD and they have helped me a lot. Especially I find Tim Fletcher’s videos useful as he thoroughly looks into the underlying issues and different ways CPTSD shows up in people, just the facts as they are. He’s kind of an old school lecturer type guy, nothing fancy and shiny (needs to be taken with a grain of salt though as he doesn’t seem to have understanding on ADHD/autism and has religious aspects in some of his videos).

    Of course being recently diagnosed with ADHD gives more light to why I’m the way I am. But now I’ve been able to start to work on my stuff from a different angle and it seems to take an effect! A difficult and rocky path but I suppose the first steps are the hardest.