Bipolaruchiha - 💜💛💚

somewhere around 60% of bipolarians are unemployed, and bipolar disorder is the sixth leading cause of disability in the world so here is a reminder that youre not alone. your worth is inherent and not linked to how well you can do a job. you have worth because you are alive not because you are able to produce labor for someone else. happy disability pride month to all the bipolarians who don’t or can’t have a job. I’m proud of you. 

and for those who do work, 88% of bipolarians surveyed said that bipolar disorder affected their ability to perform at work, so if you work and struggle, here is a reminder that you’re not alone. I recognize the struggles you face, from those caused directly by your illness, to discrimination, to working hard to appear “normal,” your efforts dont go unnoticed. your worth isnt defined by how well you do your job, either. happy disability pride month to all the bipolarians who struggle through their work but still manage to get it done. I’m proud of you, too. 

It would be so funny if autistic people started describing allistic experience the same pathologised way doctors describe autism

October is ADHD awareness month! 🎉

The memory issues ADHD causes are some of the scarier and more frustrating parts of living with it - so here’s a set of reaction doodles that all my fellow ADHD peeps are welcome to use whenever anybody decides to comment on your forgetfulness ^ 

adulthood really does hit you like a fucking truck when you spent all of your teenage years thinking you were gonna kill yourself eventually,

Fuck this one hits home.

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

I find myself explaining to people a lot recently why using "bipolar" "narcissistic" "psychopath" etc is an issue, because it can be hard to articulate in the moment, so here it is all together:

The terminology that is related to certain conditions, disorders, and neurotypes being appropriated by others to be used in commonplace situations necessarily creates problems for those whose conditions these terms are supposed to belong to and help. It stigmatises certain behaviours, makes them the butt of the joke, or underplays how debilitating they can be.

For someone who has to live with bipolar disorder, people using "bipolar" or "mania" loosely suggests that the actual bipolar people are overreacting, or else that their condition is a joke when in fact this condition not only hinders them in an ableist world, but also brings violence and discrimination against them because of the condition.

Such also is the case for personality disorders and complex disorders like schizophrenia. Using "psychotic" as an insult or a modifier erases the fact that it's a condition which most aversely affects the psychotic person, it stigmatises them as dangerous when in fact psychotic people are the ones more likely to receive violence than inflict it statistically and historically.

Saying psychopath when you mean a serial killer and sociopath when you mean someone who is cruel is also wrong in that same vein because these are ((now redundant)) subtypes of anti social personality disorder, which does not make people more likely to cause harm or to be "evil" or abusive, but rather causes issues in their own lives due to a lack of empathy, which must also not be confused with a lack of compassion.

Narcissistic personality disorder similarly is a cluster of self esteem issues, identity crisis, and a fragmented sense of self that shows itself in certain behaviours. Borderline personality disorder also is similarly stigmatised, when in fact people with this disorder are far more likely to be victims of abuse. Terms like "narcissistic abuse" or "borderline abuse" suggest that these people abused you because of their disorder, which is not at all true, and any idea of abuse can already be encompassed simply by calling it "abuse" plain and simple rather than stigmatizing a bunch of people in the process of this.

All of these disorders, though not curable, still are treatable in that people are trying to get help and adjust to life despite their symptoms. This only becomes possible as long as these symptoms and terminologies are not stigmatized any further by an ableist society. The terms used to describe these disorders are meant to HELP the people with those disorders. Not to become an excuse to treat these people worse and make them feel unwelcome.

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

We need to talk more about this.

i feel like tumblr has kind of changed the meaning of the word "echolalia" into something that can be more precisely described with "vocal stimming." people on here use echolalia to mean "repeating a word or phrase over and over because it feels good" which fits the definition of vocal stimming. that's the established term for doing that; echolalia usually means something else.

the classic meaning of echolalia isn't repeating a word that sounds good, but is actually a conversational pattern where one person repeats the last thing that got said. for example, someone might say to me, "i'll bring you the rest of the articles tomorrow" and i'll reply back "articles tomorrow." it could also be just repeating yourself after you've finished talking, like i'll say a sentence, think i'm done, then catch myself repeating the last few words of the sentence.

i also do this in ASL, so it isn't just about the mouth-feel of the words. also the words don't necessarily have to be particularly pleasing or stand out in any way. when i do it, i'm not even really trying to communicate anything, it's just how i process language. that's different from vocal stimming, which is when a word is so pleasing to say that you say it over and over again.

the reason i care about this distinction is that echolalia is a majorly stigmatized feature of autism (though it also occurs in other neurodevelopmental conditions that affect language). it's often seen as a sign that an autistic person is "low functioning" or as something to be trained out through ABA. i've never met another autistic adult with echolalia, and when i do it, it confuses the hell out of whoever i'm talking to unless they know about it as an autistic thing. i just hope that other autistic people with echolalia know that they aren't the only one who does this, and it isn't anything to be ashamed of