Ever since I started developing my anxiety, I had several issues with getting good sleep – being unable to fall asleep for several hours, having nightmares and bad dreams almost every night, and/or being unable to stay awake during the morning. But it was a while into my eating disorder before I started having dreams influenced by it. The general template is this – I am faced with a huge array of my favorite binge foods (another thing my eating disorder has ruined is the concept of favorite foods – they became associated with the ravenous compulsion to binge and the self hatred which followed my indulgence and fueled my restriction… so when I’m asked ‘what’s your favorite food?’ I flinch).
self-hatred Archive
07 Jan 2013
My Experience with Dissociative Identity Disorder (Lily)
Trigger Warning: Self-Harm, Abuse, Rape, Human Trafficking
I’ve been half-aware that I’m multiple since about the age of fourteen, when I started to realise that it really wasn’t usual for people to experience severe blackouts and time loss and memory issues (lasting hours, days, weeks, months and even years); that it wasn’t usual for people to so routinely and constantly be addressed by a completely different name by strangers who will insist that you have met them and that your name is something else; that it wasn’t usual for moods and personalities and tastes to change so drastically and so constantly. I had no word for what I was experiencing; I had no knowledge and no understanding and after about a year of being so, so aware of this I finally told my (then) therapist about those experiences. The result? A long lecture about self-diagnosis and “making up more lies to make my supposed PTSD more believable” followed by being asked about where I had researched Dissociative Identity Disorder and that I did know that it was made up and not real and that nobody would ever believe me. So, for almost ten years I hid it except from a very close friend online and one of my partners (he lived with me so it was very difficult to hide).
18 Oct 2012
A Root Issue Found, Questions Remain
During my last session with my psychiatrist, I was being “very honest and open” according to my doctor, “like never before.” I don’t like to think I hold back, but I do. I guess this particular visit I was sort of worn down, and more than a little tired, so I wasn’t thinking ahead of the curve of my brain/mouth filter. Truth was just sort of spilling out.
20 Aug 2012
My Experience With Borderline Personality Disorder (Breyonne)
I am a 33 year old woman. I received a diagnosis about a year and a half ago of Borderline Personality Disorder. At first I didn’t really understand what it was. I thought, Isn’t what I have more serious than that? I was pretty sure I had something else, something more recognizable. Something I’d actually heard of, for instance. Turns out it’s serious enough. On top of the shitstorm of feelings and thoughts I have on a daily basis, professionals are reluctant to treat people with BPD. We’re notorious for being ‘hard to deal with’.
16 Aug 2012
Activism and Me
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Jasper Moriarty. In xyr first post with us, xe discusses xyr struggle with balancing self-care with activist work. Thanks for sharing with us, Jasper!
Trigger Warnings: mention of death and rape threats
Alternatively titled: A Struggle For Balance
My activism is a crucial part of my life, despite my strange relationship with it. It’s not quite splitting (something that happens in Borderline Personality Disorder, where a person is unable to integrate the good and bad qualities of something/someone and therefore keeps them distinctly separate), but I would call it somewhat comparable.
30 Jul 2012
Today, Like So Many Others, Is A Great Day
Editor’s note: This story mentions some severe triggers. Please be careful about reading this story if you are easily triggered by the topics mentioned in our trigger warning.
Trigger warnings: Abuse, including torture and child sexual assault, forced confinement, rape, violence, bullying, and hate crimes.
Yesterday/today was/is a great day. A day to celebrate. Any day that slaps me upside my head and and asks, “WTF you bitching about?” is always a great day!
15 Jun 2012
My Experience with “Bipolar Disorder” (Corvus)
I have the innate human longing for community and love, and also decades of experience that teaches me about group dynamics and human behavior and interaction. I know what I am susceptible to, who and what can trigger me, and who can lead me in the direction of becoming someone I am not, or someone I do not wish to be. I have embraced the autonomous individual from a social species. And that is who I am.
For me, being “bipolar” is about my environment as much as it is about my mind. Almost 30 years of experience to put into words… It is impossible. So I am spitting out the feelings instead.
17 May 2012
I Wear My Scars on the Outside. Where are Yours?
My lack of privilege comes with a choice. A choice to be visible, or invisible. People prefer invisibility, especially when someone else is unlike herself, or perhaps far too much like himself. Lucky for me, it is not my responsibility to dictate what others think of me.
20 Jan 2012
A Word About Fat Panic
Fat panic. Ever heard of it? I like to think of it as the extreme mindfuck our society is preternaturally preoccupied with. It is one of the systems of oppression men and women find themselves targeted by whether they know it or not. It is the phenomenon that causes people far and wide to become so obsessed with the idea of being thin – or being fat – that they will stop at nothing to expend all possible resources – time, money, energy – to either lose weight, or to ensure they never get fat. Because of course, there is nothing worse in the world than being fat: this is the central theme associated with fat panic.
30 Nov 2011
Redesigning the Rollercoaster
Trigger warnings for discussions of drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual assault, suicide, and other possibly sensitive issues.
My experiences with mental health and sexuality have been just that. Rollercoasters. Rollercoasters of self discovery, of emotion, of fear and shame, of love and experience. Always traveling up and down throughout my life. Here’s the shortest story that I could condense these parts of my life into.