YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hello,

My name is Seth. Or you can call me by my username, if you'd like; whatever works for you works for me. My pronouns are he/him, although I've always felt an affinity for fictional creatures who go by it/its, probably due to having a less than ideal childhood. I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, ADHD, and Anti-Social Personality Disorder.

Word on ASPD tumblr travels slower than ASPD Discord, but it reached me nonetheless. Paul shows an impressive and startling amount of growth, understanding and capacity to take personal responsibility rather than deny it when his old takes were incorrect. That is something that rarely happens when someone with ASPD talks to someone who doesn't have it about this particular disorder (well, that and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is equally demonized). Most of the time, those of us who are "sociopaths" don't get the benefit of the doubt. Being raw and honest about what's wrong with you doesn't usually result in moving the other person. While what you're describing may be factual, you cannot logic someone out of a position they got into via emotion and social conditioning... mostly. Sometimes there are exceptions.

I mulled over posting on here for a while. It's not where I ever thought I'd be. Hell, I usually just listen to the episode and not the surveys, because the surveys just make me despise the lack of mental healthcare infrastructure in this country and that's only going to set me off on a rant inside my own head for a while. However, the reality is that ASPD tumblr and Discord are too guarded to be places that fulfill my mental health needs. Everyone is too on edge about the people we know are lurking for the sole purpose of trying to connect our vent posts or chat messages to our real life identities. There's been an ongoing issue of people who think they're "helping keep others safe" infiltrating those spaces for that purpose. (This has gotten especially bad since the pandemic, particularly with Tiktok "investigators" making videos on specific people or places online.) The result is that no one is able to make friends or even just vent fully to each other without a filter.

That probably sounds more dire than I meant for it to. It's not weighing me down unduly. I died once for 63 seconds, I could handle a callout post or Tiktok "beware of predators" video. It's just a part of life, in the same way my need to vent once in a while is. After doing a lot of digging, this place is off Tiktok/Gen Z's radar almost entirely. That doesn't mean I won't use a fake given name and avoid details that could identify me off-site - I'm not stupid - but it does mean I don't have to be as on guard and I don't have to worry about one of you just being here to later try to hold my words against me. (I'm also fairly certain any user caught doing that would get booted from this place in

I have more to say but as usual when I haven't taken my ADHD medication yet, I can feel myself going on for far too long, so I'll save it for another post. That's not an ASPD thing, that's a side effect of ADHD. I always know I've found one of my people when they, like me, cannot shut up. Your tribe is out there, it turns out, and they've got a very high word count.

Welcome!

I'll look forward to your posts with interest.

Skiagrapheo wrote: ↑May 13th, 2024, 9:06 am Everyone is too on edge about the people we know are lurking for the sole purpose of trying to connect our vent posts or chat messages to our real life identities. There's been an ongoing issue of people who think they're "helping keep others safe" infiltrating those spaces for that purpose

This makes me mad, evil busybodies

Please take care, Skiagrapheo

Welcome aboard the good ship Mental Pod, we are here to help you through turbulent waters and calm seas.

manuel_moe_g wrote: ↑May 13th, 2024, 4:56 pm

Skiagrapheo wrote: ↑May 13th, 2024, 9:06 am Everyone is too on edge about the people we know are lurking for the sole purpose of trying to connect our vent posts or chat messages to our real life identities. There's been an ongoing issue of people who think they're "helping keep others safe" infiltrating those spaces for that purpose

This makes me mad, evil busybodies

Please take care, Skiagrapheo

This is the kind of thing that made my last therapist mildly annoyed when I said it but you do eventually get used to it. Or at the very least, you stop being actively angry at it and come to a point where it's bearable and doesn't invoke any real emotional response. I think the standard response is just guarded behavior rather than being damaged by this... I think. It's hard to actually tell what the impact of this is because people don't really talk about it.

Skiagrapheo wrote: ↑May 14th, 2024, 11:00 am This is the kind of thing that made my last therapist mildly annoyed when I said it but you do eventually get used to it.

this makes me even more mad, that your therapist would not see their job #1 as being your advocate.

i am glad you are hear, i hope you get a lot of value out of it, you deserve much much better than what you have received

manuel_moe_g wrote: ↑May 14th, 2024, 1:01 pm

Skiagrapheo wrote: ↑May 14th, 2024, 11:00 am This is the kind of thing that made my last therapist mildly annoyed when I said it but you do eventually get used to it.

this makes me even more mad, that your therapist would not see their job #1 as being your advocate.

i am glad you are hear, i hope you get a lot of value out of it, you deserve much much better than what you have received

I think my last therapist was most concerned with getting me to be honest with myself. She'd ask me things like, "are you actually used to it, or do you just say you're used to it because you want it not to be a big deal?" and then when I would instantly open my mouth to reply, she'd remind me I didn't have to say what I thought she wanted to say. That's a common problem with ASPD and NPD: you default to downplaying things and also to people-pleasing. That doesn't allow the therapist to do their job - they can't help you process your feelings if, instead of feeling your feelings, you're thinking and making calculations based on what you think is the 'correct' thing to feel. She was trying to get me to disengage from that enough that we could actually identify how I felt so we could work on it.

Genuinely, I think she meant well. It's just not an easy thing to fix on her end, and not an easy thing to learn on my end. Sometimes a situation is a mess and it's not for lack of trying on either person's end, it just simply is because it is. I've had similar moments with my friend Mouse, whose NPD leads to a lot of "I'm used to it, it's fine" comments regarding the death threats and rape threats she gets sent for running a blog on tumblr that's supportive of people with NPD. I don't even think either of us realize we're doing it. We just go, 'well, the correct thing isn't to let stuff bother you, right? and it'll make others less upset if I'm not upset' and then we end up going, "I'm fine" without ever once actually asking ourselves if we are. Therapists have to try to get us to at least try and pose the question to ourselves if we're honestly okay with something and why or why not. That's how that they can try to help us process things.

You can't advocate for someone who you don't know and who doesn't know themselves, either. She was trying to give me the tools to learn to at least view myself clearly. I can respect the effort and logic that went into that.

Hmm...

Yes, knowing what you want seems so very important to me, because society gathers up everyone aimless and puts them to work to provide for <someone else's> dreams. And what a horrible feeling, to wake up one day and realize that you were simply a tool for somebody else's gain

I hope you can find it in yourself to try to figure out what exactly you want out of life — you don't have to get it perfect the first time, the act of trying out possibilities like you might try out different outfits can supply you with valuable information

please take care, all the best