Mental Illness

*HUGS* That's so difficult.

Yes. Another look at medication and counseling.

Hope things are better for you now?

My oldest has finally gotten better and finished the last class they needed for an undergraduate degree.

Tallcajun said:

I feel for you. My college son is in major depression. On Wellbutrin 150 mg xl.
Not really doing the trick. It did help with his sleep.
It’s hard to watch that happen to him. Giving up on school.
Giving up on life.
I think a med change is in order.

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Wild_Honey_66

Good for you. You did the right thing. The hard thing.

*HUGS*

As soon as you can you need to break away from him. Even now therapy and self care. We get it. *HUGS*

Beth87 said:

I have a good therapist emdr is good but my dissociation became so severe that it was unsafe to do emdr. I’d probably fit the criteria again now tho so that’s a big achievement.

Uni seems to be more luck than drive or discipline. Poor attendance but good GPA considering the circs.

Abuser being my dad makes him difficult to avoid. I had managed to walk away but there was a personal emergency and that vulnerability was exploited to insert themselves back into my life.

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I can't remember if I've posted in this thread or not so if I'm repeating myself I'm sorry.

But I'm only awake right now because a mania episode is kicking my ass.

So sometimes it's a real bitch, but it's like anything else, you just have to manage it the best you can and live your life. Sometimes it can get really bad and put you out of commission for a couple of days, but that's just how it is.

I don't like the stigma around neurodivergence, or physical disabilities for that matter. Too often we see disabled people being treated like... well like not "mainstream" people. Sometimes like straight up monsters for horror genre shit. If I see one more bullshit piece of media set in a mental hospital where the actual monsters are just neurodivergent folks off their meds I swear to god I'm gonna lose my shit.

I feel there's a lack of balance and understanding toward those with mental health issues ('neurodivergent' - i like that). The most common responses i see are either that we're normal, everyone has problems, etc., or that we're walking around with the black plaugue. Neither of which is helpful or true. SOME days I'm good and strong and kicking ass. SOME days are a black hole of pain and hopelessness. MOST days are somewhere in between.

I've never felt mainstream or average in any sense, and i want that to be okay. I'm totally groovy being different, but im tired of feeling 'less than.' It's exhausting.

Btw Candi, I've always admired how unapologetic you are about your life and who you are.

I'm a pleaser by nature, but I've spent far too much of my life being a doormat. It's getting better with age, my tolerance for bullshit has gone way down, but i still struggle with needing approval. It's just how I'm wired.

I appreciate seeing the example of someone very different from me, someone who has strengths that i don't, either by nature or by their own hard work.

It's inspiring. You're inspiring.

Big hugs to you all, ADHD, some Aspergers and ptsd from Hs bullying

CandiCame said:

I don't like the stigma around neurodivergence, or physical disabilities for that matter. Too often we see disabled people being treated like... well like not "mainstream" people. Sometimes like straight up monsters for horror genre shit. If I see one more bullshit piece of media set in a mental hospital where the actual monsters are just neurodivergent folks off their meds I swear to god I'm gonna lose my shit.

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I once had somebody tell me that autistic folk were all animal abusers. I probably would've been more offended/upset by that if it hadn't been so ludicrously wrong.

Wild_Honey_66 said:

I feel there's a lack of balance and understanding toward those with mental health issues ('neurodivergent' - i like that). The most common responses i see are either that we're normal, everyone has problems, etc., or that we're walking around with the black plaugue. Neither of which is helpful or true. SOME days I'm good and strong and kicking ass. SOME days are a black hole of pain and hopelessness. MOST days are somewhere in between.

I've never felt mainstream or average in any sense, and i want that to be okay. I'm totally groovy being different, but im tired of feeling 'less than.' It's exhausting.

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I work in psychology- that's actually what being "crazy" is called in the real world/in the buisness. Someone without a mental disorder or whathave you is "neurotypical", someone with one is "neurodivergent"- that is they diverge more than one z-score from that which is typical. I think if you work with something you say shit without realizing it's jargon so that's just... on me. I forget that shit isn't commonplace and self-explanatory and that probably makes me look like a pretentious ass.

But I've actually never pretended to be normal or tried to have an invisible disability because mine's pretty hard-core and went untreated for a long time. I've got all the shit you don't want to have, the behavioral outburst, the external locus of control, the mood destabilization that manifests in anger most of the time.

So pretend you're a teenage boy going to school who is prone to mood swings and behavioral outbursts. That's not the cute Fault in Our Stars mental disorder, so most teachers/authority figures don't SEE it as a mental disorder- they see it as a kid acting out who needs to be punished rather than treated. You spend 12 years being shit on instead of helped and you lose patience somewhere around fourth grade with the whole fucking system. I think that we really need to spread more awareness about the different ways disorders can manifest so other kids like me get proper treatment instead of things like being denied an education through expulsions and criminal records.

I wasn't really the kind of person who got "Oh everyone has bad days, you're fine" I was the one who got "Don't talk to that motherfucker, he's crazy. That whole family is crazy. They're DANGEROUS."

When I say that society treats people like me as literal monsters I mean it. The only time I ever saw myself represented in media was as a literal monster in horror movies or video games. You go to an insane asylum, someone like me jumps you because they're in the middle of an uncontrollable behavioral outburst, so you shoot him in the head and move on with the game because he's not a human person, he's a fucking monster.

Wild_Honey_66 said:

Btw Candi, I've always admired how unapologetic you are about your life and who you are.

I'm a pleaser by nature, but I've spent far too much of my life being a doormat. It's getting better with age, my tolerance for bullshit has gone way down, but i still struggle with needing approval. It's just how I'm wired.

I appreciate seeing the example of someone very different from me, someone who has strengths that i don't, either by nature or by their own hard work.

It's inspiring. You're inspiring.

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This is weird to me because this is actually part of my disorder that I went to years of therapy to overcome. I've tried to become more sensitive to other people's boundaries and to overshare significantly less. I have manic episodes and focuses and all that where I will just fucking go off about things pretty hardcore and that's fine for a little bit, but there's not a huge difference between, "Standing up for yourself" and "ignoring the input of other people".

I used to be completely unable to even register other people's attitudes about me at all. Like I simply could not do it. It's not even narcissism, it's just that I genuinely could not, no matter how hard I tried, get myself to give a shit for a lot of reasons. That's not a good thing. For a lot of reasons. For one thing it's physically dangerous- all through college I was really, really camp, like even more than I am now, like I coulda been on fucking Will & Grace. So now my jaw is fucked up for life because I got my ass beat that bad because that's what happens when you're out in the bible belt sometimes. You have to be able to give a shit what people think about you to assess those risk factors. I fought a LOT because I couldn't figure out how/when to keep my mouth shut.

Like this is not a good thing.

Another part of it is that if you can't make that connection, then when you do something good and people are proud of you it literally means nothing. You give no shits. I didn't walk at any of my graduations because those weren't positive things to me, because I couldn't make myself care and I knew other people would maybe play it up, especially my bf at the time who kind of got in a fight over it for my last graduation, because I couldn't make him understand that I did care about him, but it would really fuck me up if I had to listen to him tell me he was proud of me and I couldn't feel any kind of way about it.

My tolerance for bullshit is very low because I ran out of spoons by kindergarten. I'm a very forward, in-your-face person by nature, and it's really, really hard for me not to call out bullshit when I see it, or to run my mouth in general, and I actually learned why in therapy and developed coping mechanisms to curtail it.

Every person is born with a stress threshold, but I'm going to call it a bullshit threshold for explanation purposes. Every person has so many mental resources for dealing with bullshit, and that's all you get. It never resets and it never refills. You have a lifetime bullshit threshold. This is genetic. Some people have a higher capacity for bullshit than others, but everyone only has what they're born with. Once that's full you have to use either problem-focused or emotion-focused coping mechanism to deal with the excess.

I happened to be born into a situation that was just rife with bullshit. I won't go into it, but interestingly, all the tests and shit I took showed that I was resilient child- that is, I actually had a very high bullshit threshold. My bullshit capacity was actually quite high- but it wasn't high enough for the amount of shit I had to deal with. And so I would deal with all the shit at home, and go to school with very little left- so if there was some kind of bullshit, some extra bullshit, like someone pissed me off, my amount of bullshit would exceed my capacity to deal with bullshit, and I would have a behavioral episode, usually some kind of fight. Now because this is uncontrollable, it didn't matter if it was another kid, a teacher, or the principle, and it didn't matter if they had 100lbs, 3ft, and 40 years on me. We're talking about a five year old kid who would jump a grown-ass adult. I lit the fuck into my second grade teacher because she refused to tell me how to spell the word "brother" and they had to call my parents and shit. I was what, like 6 or 7?

Because of this, I couldn't understand the concept of authority. I had to go to these evaluations, because I was an "at risk" kid, and I've read those reports since and I genuinely didn't understand it. I thought, for example, that teachers worked for me. I didn't understand the concept of school as a training ground for future employment, so for that outburst in particular, the reason I was angry is because I felt like her job was to teach me pretty much anything I wanted to know, because I guess I was an entitled little shit, and when she refused to do that it was more bullshit than I was capable of putting up with.

I also had an external locus of control, so conditioning didn't work on me. That is, no matter how much you punished me, I would never improve my behavior. This is, to this day, a huge way that we're failing kids. When you have an internal locus of control, you believe that you affect your environment, but when you have an external locus of control, you believe that you react to your environment. So if you have an external, punishments won't work because the driving force of the behavior is not from within the child. To help me, they would have needed to change the environment, to take away the stressor. But no one ever did that because fuck me and other kids like me, I guess. That does seem to be why the school system is set up like that- because it fucks over every single child with an external locus of control. Without fail. The statistics show close to a 100% failure rate.

The good news is that as an adult you can control your environment to much greater degree, so you usually can just remove the stressor. But it also means that you can't really use emotion-focused coping mechanisms, you use problem-focused coping mechanisms. So you deal with the problem, it's done, you don't have to think about it anymore.

And the thing is- had any person, at any point, sat me down and explained to me what a classroom environment was supposed to be in terms that a child could understand- I would have been fine. I would have changed my behavior because I would have understood my environment. But no one ever thought to do that. They assumed I knew by default just because everyone else did- what the power structure was, and treated me like I was lying when I said I didn't, for reasons that are still beyond my power to understand.

So often, now, as an adult, when I go into a new situation, I straight up ask. And people don't treat adults like shit as frequently, so they just answer me and BOOM problem fucking solved. As long as I know what's expected of me and it's explained to me logically, I can do that. I can do all the things that a neurotypical person can do, you just have to actually tell me what it is and not expect me to pick it up through fucking osmosis because I don't know how the fuck all the rest of y'all are doing that. And I don't know why the fuck people think I'm lying when I said that for twelve goddamn years. People lie to make themselves look smarter, not dumber.

Of course I now also have documentation that if you don't do that you're in violation of the ADA, so I do advise everybody who's neurodivergent to become familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act, because if you need accommodations like an HR meeting where they explain what the power structure is to you and why, they legally HAVE to do that. They can't just not do it. Some college professors will get real pissed off and give you like the most inconvenient 20 minute window that they can, but they do have to do it. If you have a mood disorder that leads to behavioral outbursts and you have to take meds and then wait for them to kick in, they HAVE to let you do that. You're allowed reasonable accommodations. They're not allowed to just shit on you. I mean, you can't just be an asshole and use your neurodivergence as an excuse, but they do have to give you accommodations, no matter how bad it pisses them off.

I could go on about this forever because it has affected my life kind of a lot, but my bullet point is that neurodivergent people are fucking people, and especially that neurodivergent kids are goddamn CHILDREN. And that if we gave half a fuck about picking out this kind of shit and treating it instead of punishing it we wouldn't be funneling neurodivergent kids into the school to prison pipeline and fucking up what should be the foundation of their academic career. A lot of this shit really is on the schools, and on society at large, and that bothers me. I'll die mad about it because I don't really forsee it changing.

Bramblethorn said:

I once had somebody tell me that autistic folk were all animal abusers. I probably would've been more offended/upset by that if it hadn't been so ludicrously wrong.

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Yeah, this kind of shit. This is the kind of shit people say. They say it right to the person they're talking about, too, right to your fucking face.

I got "psychopath" a lot, I got teachers making fun of me right to my face- my drama teachers would FREQUENTLY make fun of me by saying that I needed to be medicated as if that was some kind of horrible, fucked-up thing and not just like... a true fact. I got people acting like- I keep going back to the monster thing because it really was like the default insult, the go-to, but people have acted as if I were scary for literally as long as I can remember. And I'm not. At all. I am a nice person who does good things most of the time. I'm tiny, too, like even if I wanted to hurt someone I couldn't. I'm a delicate fucking flower, but because of the way society sees neurodivergent people I'm a literal video game monster. They're not subtle about it! They'll say shit like that right to your face, that they're scared you're gonna go all Ed Gein on them or whatever.

Location doesn't help. You can get to Waverly and back on one tank of gas so there is this like, extremely localized stigma on top of the one mainstream culture already has.

That's something else, too- I spent my whole childhood being /threatened/ with treatment. "Get your shit together or we'll send you to the mental hospital" like it's fucking Arkham Asylum and not a goddamn hospital where the people will help you. Like it's fucking Mount Massive.

Sorry, I know this is really long, I just really, really wish we would get our shit together, as a society, on this subject, especially for kids. The system has only gotten worse since I was in it. And that breaks my heart. Neurodivergent kids are actually MORE likely to be abused and neglected now, not less.

There's no federal law saying that kids need to be screened for things like behavioral disorders, no federal law saying how teachers need to act with these kids. These kids have no protection- 1 in 5 kids have some kind of neurodivergent disorder, and half of them drop out of school because of the way they're fucking treated. You can google this shit. I stuck it out but a lot of people don't.

We have to do better than this.

To keep harping on how shitty society is- let's talk about hormones for a second, and that recent law that was passed saying that health insurance no longer has to cover them. This was an attempt to shit on trans folks, which is already horrible- but imagine a government that hates trans people bad enough that it's willing to throw neurodivergent people under the bus to shit on them. Oh, wait, you don't have to imagine if you live in the good ol US of A.

Testosterone does a lot of shit, but one of the things it does is regulate mood disorders. If you have too little, you get depression. If you have too much, you get mania and mood swings. Like you know people who take testosterone because it's been linked to increase muscle formation get the "roid rage"? The mood swings and mania? Yeah some people just do that because their fucking glandular system is stupid, and they need to regulate that with hormone therapy.

But then your insurance quits covering it and they sure as hell ain't giving that shit away at the pharmacy so fuck you, you get to just have manic episodes and not be able to sleep for weeks at time so that you can dedicate that prime mood swing territory to posting on the internet at like 4 or 5am about how goddamn crazy you are.

We. Should. Be. Better. Than. This.

Candi

Thank you for oversharing. it makes me feel less alone.

My family has a fuck ton of neurodivergence, i just wasn't familiar with the term. I am familiar with the term neurotypical, and with spoon theory.

I'd like to hear more about internal vs. external locus of control, if you're willing, that sounds like it might apply to at least one of my kids.

(If you get worried about threadjacking here, feel free to post over here:
https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1462857&highlight=Brain)

Wild_Honey_66 said:

Candi

Thank you for oversharing. it makes me feel less alone.

My family has a fuck ton of neurodivergence, i just wasn't familiar with the term. I am familiar with the term neurotypical, and with spoon theory.

I'd like to hear more about internal vs. external locus of control, if you're willing, that sounds like it might apply to at least one of my kids.

(If you get worried about threadjacking here, feel free to post over here:
https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1462857&highlight=Brain)

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I mean, this is a thread about neurodivergence so I think it fits here and I might as well go into it if folks are interested.

So locus of control is a term that basically dictates certain mindsets. These are innate, and have been observed by some researchers as early as three months old, but that research is debatable because you have to judge by reactions when someone is non-verbal, so you can't get a good reading until the person is old enough to speak and explain their thoughts. But we do know that it's good and set by the time someone is a toddler.

There are two types, internal and external, and because it's innate, we know that they're not changed by environmental factors; a lot of psychological stuff is but some isn't, and for treatment that's an important distinction.

The thing is, one is not necessarily better than the other, it's just that both require different treatment plans for behavior modification, and most cultural structures like the school system are set up for people with an internal locus of control.

So if you have an internal locus of control, you see the world through a lens wherein you, the individual, influences the environment. You are the most important thing. So if something good happens, it's because you deserve it, and if something bad happens, you did something to deserve that, too. You fundamentally believe that you can alter the results by changing your environment. So if a child with an internal locus of control is punished for something, they think, "I will change my behavior to avoid this punishment". That can be anything from being yelled at to taking away a privilege to getting their ass beat. Having an internal locus control also means that any kind of neurodivergence is going to manifest inward- we see these kinds of people commonly performing acts of self-harm like cutting. Conditioning, the form of control most commonly used in social structures like schools, where there is a system of rewards and punishments in place, works really well on these kinds of people because they're simply wired to handle that kind of thing. They can see and predict the patterns as they are associated with their behavior.

People with external loci of control see the environment as shaping the behavior, and the world is not rules based, it's logic based. That's just how you see the world. So if something good happens, it's not because you were just really amazing, it's because of external factors that you can identify, like, "I did really well on this test because the material was presented in such a way that I could understand it. I retain things better when I read them. Therefore, I will read things to learn." It's the person who wrote the book, or the teacher who gave the really good lecture, who allowed you to pass the test. You stand on the shoulders of giants. On the flip side, you're not being punished because you did something wrong, you're being punished because the person who punished you is a dick, unless they have a DAMN good explanation and can justify that behavior to you. These people have significantly less ability to put up with bullshit, and a great inability to identify and respect power structures. They need to know why the rules are in place, and the rules have to be logical. "Don't talk in class because then other people can't hear the lecture over your childish bullshit, and other people are here to learn. You're being an asshole." Yeah, fine, I'll hush then. But "Don't talk in class" bitch why the fuck not? What kind of bullshit is that? We already read all this shit in the book and you're not saying anything anyone doesn't already know.

Because they see the environment as the thing causing the behavior, the environment needs to be logically explained to them or the frustration they feel about not understanding the world around them will manifest in different ways, but it will cause a lot of frustration. Conditioning doesn't work on them at all, so you can take away all the recess you want and all the kid will learn is, "These people are assholes. I hate this place. Why the fuck don't I get recess?" And that builds and builds and builds when all it would take is the teacher sitting down and logically explaining WHY the child is being punished. But they don't do that. For reasons that were never explained to me. And it's not just recess. You'll see people who have external loci of control talking about their childhood and genuinely not understanding why they were being punished or why other kids were afraid of punishments because you're physically incapable of connecting your behavior with the outcome- the outcome is what dictates the behavior. And many people developed learned helplessness, because you don't understand the rules, and just by being yourself you're going to break rules at some point, so fuck it. You stop even trying to be "good" and just accept that you'll lose privileges and gain punishments at random, that the world is a cold uncaring place that makes no sense, and that no one is ever going to help you understand it. If you're lucky you stick it through school on sheer spite and determination, but if you're unlucky you just drop out because you stayed in trouble anyway and weren't really learning anything.

When we see behavioral outbursts manifest in these folks, it's less self-harm and more outward aggression directed toward the environmental stressor.

To highlight this difference, let's use an example. We'll put two people in the same situation. Say you're, I don't know, a girl in high school, and you have a boyfriend, and he's "stolen" by another girl. Then she goes around school bragging that she stole your man, that she's going to prom with him, that she's slept with him and he says that you're a prude who he never really liked anyway and who is incapable of expressing love.

That's a scenario that happens to real kids. I've seen something like this happen a lot. People are bullied over stupid shit and this one isn't particularly offensive because there's no hate crime involved, so it's a good example.

Now, at it's extreme, someone with an internal locus of control would start to think, "Maybe she's right. Maybe I am unlovable. Maybe I'll never have sex, which means I'll never have children, and I'll die alone. I really, really cared about him, so if he's willing to leave me for someone else it must mean that there's something wrong with me. Therefore I'm going to start self-harming, because I deserve it. At my most extreme state of depression, I might commit suicide."

On the other hand, if this high-school kid has an external locus of control, at it's extreme she would think, "I can't believe that cheating slut left me for that bitch. She's been running all over this school with her tongue wagging like somebody ain't gonna pull it out through her teeth. I wish that bitch would say something to my face. I was born and RAISED in the wish a bitch woods. If I hear one more stream of bullshit come out that bitch's mouth I'm gonna catch her outside the prom and just whoop her ass like she owes me child support. I'll claw her fucking eyes out. Take my man, bitch? I know you work at Wendy's on weekends and you have lost your goddamn mind if you think I won't pull you right over that counter by your hair. And my ex is just letting her do it like I won't beat his ass, too? He knows me better. You fuckers want crazy, I'll show you crazy! At my most extreme state of depression, I might kill both you motherfuckers. Cheat on me? Steal my man? I wish a bitch would say some shit to me!"

I think you can see how the culture views one of these as a legitimate mental illness, the kind you see in movies and whatnot, and the other as a person "acting out" and deserving of punishment, which will then just not work and lead to learned helplessness. But the truth is that these are both equally valid symptoms of the same disorder (in this case situational depression brought on by bullying) manifesting differently because of different loci of control.

People will outwardly make fun of people with external loci of control for the way they react to situations, even though their reactions are logical. Like how many times have you see this very scenerio used as entertainment? Think of how many reality TV shows where this is a plot point. "I slept with your lover" "Then I shall kick your ass". Like that IS a logical reaction. You caused the pain I am feeling, so I will remove you, the stressor, from my environment, via a good, old-fashioned, ass whooping. People think that's fucking funny.

They don't think it's funny when that instead manifests as self harm and they see a person with, say, scars up and down their arms from cutting themselves. They think, "This person needs help."

But psychologically it's THE EXACT SAME THING manifested differently. Both these people need to learn emotion-focused coping schemas so that they're not a danger to themselves or others. And it bothers me, as someone who grew up with an external locus of control, and obviously still has one because they are incapable of being changed, to see one treated as legitimate and the other as redneck bullshit, because they're both legitimate manifestations of neurodivergence that deserve treatment. And the one that we're punishing is the one LEAST LIKELY to improve from punishment- punishments are going to add to the problem.

Also, for some reason, neurotypical people see the external loci of control reaction as manifested anger and DON'T BELIEVE PEOPLE when we say it's not. I can't count the number of times I've been in a fight where the principle or whoever asked me why I was mad and I tried to explain that I wasn't mad, that it, in my mind, really was just cause and effect, and NO ONE BELIEVED ME, let alone offered me any kind of treatment. And that is extremely common. Most people report similar situations wherein they weren't believed about their own emotions. These are not cases of people flying mad and doing this shit, these are often calm, rational, planned attacks in the same way that most suicides are planned. These are different from flying mad and making and attacking somebody. Their logical outcomes based on what we know about human psychology- which is why no lawyer in the world would try to use "innocent by means of insanity" if you've got an assault charge because you finally broke down and did beat the everloving shit out of your cheating ex- because you went around school for weeks before that saying that if he tried to talk to you, you would beat his ass. So a lawyer won't invalidate you to help you, but a teacher or principle will invalidate you to hurt you. You're fucked no matter what. And it's... it's not ideal.

BTW, my girlfriend came up with that "born and raised in the 'Wish a Bitch Woods'" thing. She's got a way with words. She also told me I would gather all 7 dragon balls to wish a bitch would. I didn't realize how often I said that until she pointed it out to me. But that might be a bullet point way to tell the difference. Someone with an internal locus of control is more likely to say, "I hope she doesn't," whereas someone with an external locus of control is more likely to say, "I wish a bitch would". Or, "they can try it"- that's another one I say a lot. Got called out for that one, too, lol.

CandiCame said:

I also had an external locus of control, so conditioning didn't work on me. That is, no matter how much you punished me, I would never improve my behavior. This is, to this day, a huge way that we're failing kids. When you have an internal locus of control, you believe that you affect your environment, but when you have an external locus of control, you believe that you react to your environment. So if you have an external, punishments won't work because the driving force of the behavior is not from within the child.

Click to expand...

Thanks for elaborating on this - that was a really interesting read.

Of course I now also have documentation that if you don't do that you're in violation of the ADA, so I do advise everybody who's neurodivergent to become familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act, because if you need accommodations like an HR meeting where they explain what the power structure is to you and why, they legally HAVE to do that.

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(Or its non-US counterpart - UK, Canada, Australia, many other places have similar laws, though the details vary.)

The catch, at least here in Australia, is that you do need an Official Diagnosis of some kind of neurodivergence to request accommodations... and "diagnosis" is also spelled "pre-existing condition". Which isn't as big a problem here as it is in the USA, but it's still a consideration, and part of why I held off for a long time on seeking that diagnosis for autism. So probably best to read the fine print on your healthcare.

(hooray, let's penalise people for being proactive about mental health care, there's no way that could go wrong...)

Candi, thank you for explaining all of that, it makes so much sense. I've been struggling to understand some of my children and this has been a real eye-opener.

Do you know if there are any genetic factors that contribute to whether someone has an internal or external locus of control? Or whether they are more likely to be seen in conjunction with other mental health conditions? Or is it believed to be totally random?

Bramblethorn said:

(hooray, let's penalise people for being proactive about mental health care, there's no way that could go wrong...)

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Here, I'll say it for you: STUPID FUCKERS!

Thank you so much for writing this out, it gave me a new way to understand myself, my husband, and my students (I'm a high school teacher).

As much for my own sanity as anything else, my philosophy in dealing with disruptive students is just to assume that they don't know better, to explain very clearly what is expected and why, and to explain the options and the results of each choice. It's a much better alternative than stewing about the bad manners, disrespect, and immaturity that many adults (teachers and non-teachers alike) complain about when dealing with children.

Personally, I feel like I've switched from external to internal. I was in an abusive relationship for a while and after I escaped it seemed much better to attribute the way he treated me to my own behaviors and appearances than to imagine a world where someone could out of the blue have such a strong desire to cause pain to me.

Wild_Honey_66 said:

I'm here!

Recently separated after twenty years in an abusive marriage. About the only thing he didn't do was hit me. He did rape me, forcefully. He did threaten to rape my adult daughter from my first marriage to her face, in front of me (He threatened me, too.).

I wish it were as easy to leave as walking out the door. It's not. Do you know that it takes the typical abused woman leaving an average of seven times before she's able to stay gone? I went back twice, both times because i lacked the resources and support to provide for myself.

I don't know what it's like to live in a healthy environment, both of my parents are survivors of abuse and abusers themselves. What i do know is that life is difficult, and complicated, and I've done a heap more surviving than living.

Now that we are out of his house and into our own, i am doing what i can to give my kids a healthy, happy home, but a ship doesn't turn on a dime. Twenty years in a shitty environment means my kids have baggage, and behavior issues, and mental health issues. It means the sheriffs dept. has been to our house more than once. It means i have a hard time building meaningful friendships both because people shy away from messy families (perfectly understandable), and because I'm afraid to let people in.

It's not a conscious thing on my part. Everyone wants to look like they have their shit together, don't they? But eventually a new acquaintance will start asking the difficult questions, and no matter how delicately i try to word my responses, there is no getting around the truth. Then their face changes, and their voice, and i can feel them pulling away as i crumble inside.

There is a warm, fuzzy thing on Facebook that says somethjng like, 'I am a strong woman because i was raised by a strong woman.' I didn't share it. I was raised by an unstable mother, a cool and distant step-mother, and a father who was harsh and verbally abusive. I am a strong woman because I've had to teach myself to survive, to fight, and now I'm teaching myself to heal and to thrive.

I am enormously grateful to have had, at times, people to meet my needs for acceptance, approval, attention, affection. They were bright spots in a dark sky, they gave me a taste of what life and love ought to look like, and they give me hope.

2019 will be a hard year, I'm sure of it. But it will be a good year, too. I'm determined.

Tally fucking ho.

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The 4 A's Acceptance, Approval, Attention, Affection. Brilliant and so simple, what every marriage needs.

Wild_Honey_66 said:

Candi, thank you for explaining all of that, it makes so much sense. I've been struggling to understand some of my children and this has been a real eye-opener.

Do you know if there are any genetic factors that contribute to whether someone has an internal or external locus of control? Or whether they are more likely to be seen in conjunction with other mental health conditions? Or is it believed to be totally random?

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I believe there is a genetic component.
So much of what my son is going thru reflects what my older brother went thru at the same age (early 20’s).

Honey, thanks for sharing your story. You are on my prayer list!

Wild_Honey_66 said:

Candi, thank you for explaining all of that, it makes so much sense. I've been struggling to understand some of my children and this has been a real eye-opener.

Do you know if there are any genetic factors that contribute to whether someone has an internal or external locus of control? Or whether they are more likely to be seen in conjunction with other mental health conditions? Or is it believed to be totally random?

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's genetic and normally matralinially inherited if I remember right, but I'd look it up because I am just pulling that out of the top of my head. But like anything hereditary it's not like it's on one gene. Biologically it's a prefrontal cortex thing, paired with the amygdala and hypocampus, so it's like... weird? Neuroscience is weird. But it is somewhat predictable, and the behavioral outbursts are super predictable, if you can catch the symptoms early enough to know what you're dealing with. This is super useful to do if you're a parent because it helps you build and maintain structures that work best for that child.

Yeah, they're each associated with different behavioral disorders, because they cause the same stressor to manifest differently.

If you have an internal locus of control it tends to manifest in self-harm and suicidal tendencies, as well as risk-seeking behavior. So we'll see things like- I mean suicide is the big one. I've worked with kids who will pull the fucking wires out of the walls trying to kill themselves. They get determined and we have to put them on suicide watch which is where you always have staff within an arm's reach of you to stop you from doing shit like that. But also especially starting in the teens we see cutting as a big one, or burning themselves, or other risk-taking behavior. We see alcoholism a lot in adults, but addictive personality disorder can manifest with either loci of control. It's not a be-all end-all, it's just a factor. We also tend to see these kids self-isolate, where they'll just not engage with their peers in a meaningful way, so that's a pretty good tell, like if you're in a classroom and you see that one kid who just will not engage in any kind of group activity to the point beyond regular shyness.

The external one tends to manifest in behavioral outbursts that are also pretty easy to pick up if you know what to look for. We tend to see these kids being "bossy", and in fact, they're often chosen for leadership positions- just because it's not the one system likes doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. In fact, these kids can be overly empathetic and get what's known as "empathy burnout" which is a whole other thing where they just become really jaded really fast to the point that they kind of seem like mini-adults. They'll be EXTREMELY vocal, to the point where teachers will label them as 'disruptive' because they just don't... understand why that's bad- a lot of the symptoms we see in external LOC kids is that they just don't understand and because they do the mini-adult things people assume that they understand like adults when they're like 5, but they don't, they still have a child brain. But behavioral outbursts are the big thing that manifests in external LOC kids. Talking in class, joking around, telling long, rambling stories that don't go anywhere, things that are often misclassified as "attention seeking behavior" even though it really isn't- sometimes they'll have "aggressive" personalities so we see fighting as a big issue, like physically fighting, because - here's another thing that might help explain this

There's this thing about how people think; a group of thoughts is called a 'schema', so you can have all different kinds of schemas, but intrusive thoughts are called 'negative thought schemas'. That's those thoughts that are like, 'I should beat her ass' or 'no one cares about me' or 'I should drive my car into this tree' or 'they're just pretending to like you' or 'he hits you because he cares and he's trying to correct your behavior' - these are the kinds of thoughts that you know are wrong as you're thinking them. Like you think something and you know it's fucked up. You see a bunny and you think, 'I should squeeze that to death' and then you think, right after that, "I'm fucked up".

So there are two ways to cope with these intrusive thoughts, emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping.

It gets kind of complex to explain but I'm gonna try to go through how these intersect with loci of control and how that causes different behavioral disorders and how we can help clients using behavior modification therapy to control their neurodivergent disorders but it might be a long one, so buckle in.

I'm really digging this thread, btw. Most people don't let you drone on and on about work and enjoy it.

Now, if you have an internal loci of control, because you fundamentally believe that the individual affects the environment, emotion-focused coping mechanisms are going to be the most effective at combating your negative thought schemas. That is, you learn how to kind of "see" the world objectively like someone with an external loci of control is, using therapy. A professional will work with you to identify and isolate those negative thought schemas in a way that's right for you, and to help you control your emotions, because you believe that your emotions and behaviors shape your world.

I'm actually going to use the example again to help explain this because I'm not super great at explaining things. Say that high school girl is brought into your office after a suicide attempt, suffering from severe depression, the one with the internal LOC. You're doing talk therapy sessions as part of an intensive treatment plan designed for full integration at a group home or alternative school or something, because generally they don't put you back into a mainstream school right after a suicide attempt. As she talks to you, you can tell that this is situational, not chemical depression, that this girl has been bullied so severely by her ex and his new gf that though antidepressants might help, really this client needs CBT (btw, be in school and google CBT meaning cognitive behavioral therapy and WATCH the cock & ball torture pop up like we need to rename one of these things because that is distracting as FUCK when you're trying to write a paper and are also into BDSM like the stars aligned to fuck me on that one).

So, you ask about the intrusive negative thoughts and she says, "I just feel like no one will ever love me. I loved him with all my heart, we were so close, and then he cheated on me with someone else, and he's letting her say these awful things about me, so he probably believes them too. I did my best with that relationship. I tried so hard, and I still failed. I feel like no one will ever be able to really love me, because if my best isn't good enough, do I really deserve love from someone else?"

This is a common thing, that's why I used it as an example. Pretty much anyone with an internal LOC has felt like that. I bet people in this very thread have felt like that. Breakups are hell, and when you're young and inexperienced and everyone is super immature, they can knock you flat on your ass.

So, because the emotions are the problem, "I feel unlovable", you help the client by teaching them some strategies to understand and process those emotions. On the first session, you'll take one thing, like that confession, and break it down piece by piece. And then you kind of force them to look at it objectively.

"I feel unloved because he cheated on me" she says, so you say:
"Is it possible that your ex cheated not because of some deficiency YOU have, but because of some deficiency HE has? These sort of things aren't usually black and white. Normally there's a grey area. Was there anything about him you didn't like?"

You ask questions; you don't tell them what to think, you let them get their on their own. It's slow, but it's what they need. Which is part of the reason why it's so shitty that most insurance will only pay for five sessions, because five sessions ain't gonna cut it. But you work back from the emotion to trace it to it's core, and then you question the foundation of the core. And eventually the client will go from, "He cheated on me because I am unlovable" to "anyone who would cheat on me instead of making a clean break and then starting a new relationship is an asshole, and even the most unlovable doesn't deserve to have to put up with assholes just because of basic human empathy" to "I shouldn't have to put up with that kind of behavior from someone who claims to love me. I have a right to feel frustrated. Yes, it may have been partially my fault that the relationship was not good, and yes, maybe the relationship needed to end, but I did not deserve to be cheated on. What I am feeling, what I misidentified as sadness and disappointment with myself, is actually frustration at the situation, and now that I know how to identify my actual emotions, I can work through them."

Once you get to that stage- and it can be a long-ass time, like it can be weeks because these people really build up walls because they want everything to be their fault, then you give exercises like, "I want you to keep a journal, and every time you have an intrusive thought, write it down and see if you can trace it to its core". You don't actually do this until you're confident that they can actually do that. You don't overwhelm - I want to pause and say that I work in developmental psychology so this shit might actually move faster with adults but I don't actually know - but you don't overwhelm them, you don't give them anything they can't handle because that'll cause a backlash, a "I can't even do therapy right, there must be something real bad wrong with me" backlash. But anyway, when they've learned how to deconstruct negative thought schemas you give them the journal and tell them to do it on their own.

Once they get good enough at doing it on their own, you implement emotion focused coping strategies - of which there are a FUCK TON, and you have to know what your client needs because every client is different, but they're tools to help them overcome the negative thought schemas and the emotions that come with it so that they can build a strong foundation. I'm sure you've heard of some of them- the timing method, which is where you let the thought happen, you lean into it and intellectually you know 'this is an intrusive thought schema' but you give into the emotion, have yourself a good cry, but you don't take any action at all until you know the schema has passed. Then you reward yourself with whatever your token is (and I swear to god it can be anything, some grown-ass adults put little star stickers in their journals like a kindergartener, but it just has to be a token that reminds you that you were strong enough to make it through that particular schema. A lot of people use little Dove chocolates or another candy. It just has to be some small, positive thing, that you have as a reminder that you were strong enough to get through it. And it needs to be something portable enough that you can use it in like, a highschool bathroom or whatever, wherever the stressor that is triggering those schemas is. It doesn't matter if other people would think it was stupid, or if you feel like it's stupid starting out, because it'll work).

That's the only example I'm gonna give because I'm running out of time. But my point is that understanding, deconstructing, and empowering their emotions are normally extremely helpful to people who are suffering from depression and have an internal locus of control. It helps them to understand that because they fell like they have control over their environment, they can use that control to affect how they see the world and what behaviors they display. And a lot of clients find this extremely helpful. They find that after a year or so of deconstructing their emotions they don't even need the journal anymore because they can do it on the fly.

And here's the kicker- here's why this works in regards to situational depression like this. Once you can do it to yourself, you start doing it to other people. And then they can't really hurt you anymore. You go from, "She's saying these awful things about me because they're true and I'm a bad person" to "She's saying this awful things about me because she's insecure in her relationship. She knows that if he cheated once he'll probably do it again, so she has to shit on me to convince herself that I was the problem, not the cheating bastard she's dating." And they'll find that their ability to do that allows them to make predictions that are normally correct. Most people who cheat once WILL do it again. So in a few months when that girl who was bragging about stealing her man catches him with somebody else- the client is now sitting there like, "Yeah. Called it. That's really sad for her. I was there. I went through that."

Now onto problem-focused coping strategies and I'm gonna try to get through this one quick. These don't tend to work as well for people with internal LOC, and so are genuinely only used as a last resort when the problem really is so great that no amount of emotion-focused coping strategies will fix it. This bullying example isn't really bad enough but like... let's say that the client was being molested by a parent. It absolutely does not matter how you change your mindset, you will never get any better as long as the abuse is allowed to continue. So the therapist is legally required to remove the whole-ass problem. The parent needs to be in fucking jail. You still do all the emotion-focused therapy to help the client process it, but some people are just /problems/ and need to fucking burn. Seen this shit more than once.

Problem-focused coping mechanisms are just where you remove the problem.

Now, with external locus of control, you actually start and go more in-depth with the problem-focused as the primary therapy. Because these kids are wired to think that external factors are the most important, that is that the environment shapes the individual rather than the individual shapes the environment, you have to turn whatever is bothering them into an external factor so they can isolate and confront it.

So let's go back to our high-school girl being bullied example. You get her in your office, this time because she's been expelled for just whopping some other kid's ass. Put her in the damn hospital, and she's here at the juvenile detention center where you work, and you're doing the intake that you have to have to get her prepped for her sentencing court date and set up the treatment plan you know you're gonna need because she is... she ain't going home, they're going to sentence her bigger than hell. That other girl is in a damn coma. You know to just go ahead and start a treatment plan because you've seen this shit before. You know who's going home and who isn't.

So you ask her why she beat her ass so bad, and she explains the situation. "Bitch stole my man and started running her mouth, so I punched her in it. You know you can only run your mouth so long before somebody hits you in it."

You say, "Were you angry at her?"

She says, "No, that's just cause and effect is all that is. You run your mouth, you get hit in it. Becky said to me, 'You know Trish got beef with you, right? You know she's been running her mouth all over this school, right? Tellin everybody she slept with your man.' I said, 'I wish a bitch would say that shit to my face. Let her say that to her face. Let her bring all her catty little bitches and say that shit to my face. Let's see what happens.' Then I took my ass down to that Wendy's and I said, 'You got somethin to say to me bitch?' And she did, so I whooped her ass. That's just how it is. I wouldn't mad, but there was nothing else I could do."

First off, literally me, but like flip genders. So without fail, the first thing that pops into my mind, even as an adult, sitting there with all my training, is "How the fuck are they gonna arrest this kid like she didn't have a right to beat that girl's ass?" And then I have to stop myself and use the coping mechanisms I used to dismiss that intrusive thought.

So. With an external locus of control and depression, the brain is wired in such a way as you don't have to identify your emotions. You know what they are. You're hyper aware of what you think and why because your thoughts are so logical that other people having illogical thoughts pisses you off and confuses you. Your entire world revolves around the idea that the universe makes sense. So your main question is "Why?"

"Why did you beat her ass?"
"Because she was running her mouth."

Succinct, understandable, and completely logical. Like at this point you could very well be like, "Understood, mam, have a nice day." Because that's like... that's the end of that. There's nothing to get to the root of. It's not like, "Why did you beat his ass?"
"Because he was gay." Where you then have to ask, "Why does that bother you?"

We all know that when someone is spreading lies about you it damages your ability to exist in the society at large, it presents negative ideas to educators and employers, it limits your social circle and humans are social animals. So the logic, at it's core, makes sense. There's no emotion to work through. You're not mad, you don't need anger management, you took a logical course of action to remove the problem. People in comas don't run their fucking mouth, now do they? And now everyone is going to know the causational relationship between, "Running your mouth about me" and "Getting your ass beat" and if they want to run that risk they certainly have the option, but you've made it clear that there will be some risk involved.

My point is that emotion-focused strategies won't work. Because it isn't a case of someone getting emotional. It's a case of removing the problem /in the wrong way/.

And it's also not a lack of empathy. I want to make that very clear- this often appears as a lack of empathy, but I swear to god, when I was in high school and I used to fight all the time, I genuinely, hand to god, cross my heart and hope to die, thought that I was being empathetic, thought that I was doing that person a favor, by beating the shit out of them. When you're going through adolescent egocentrism, it's easy to generalize your mindset to everyone around you. You treat others the way that you would want to be treated, not the way that society has decided is ethical. So my mindset, coming from a home where 'discipline' very much was 'I'm going to beat the hell out of you, so every time you think about doing this you'll see those bruises and remember to do a risk benefit analysis before you act.' So I genuinely thought, "I'm doing you a favor by teaching you this risk/benefit assessment strategy. You should be really thankful it's me who decided to do this, because I'm small and can't really hurt you. If you don't learn this now, one day you're going to run your mouth off at somebody who can actually hurt you, and they'll fucking kill you. I'm doing you a service."

I mean... it's fucked up but that's actually how I thought. "I am literally saving your life with this ass-whooping". And I think that you can see how, from my perspective, that was a logical thought. It's not necessarily true, but it is logical. It makes perfect sense. I feel like I have to defend myself because that's another thing that teachers never believe by psychologists always do because it's an extremely common mindset. Awful, awful parents often have this mindset and please for the love of god if you think like this fix it before you have kids because then they'll think like that and teach their kids to think like that and it'll go on and on with violent pieces of shit until the end of time.

Anyway. So you say, "You have a problem, and it's that you can't live your life acting like this. It's going to severely limit your future. So we need to find better ways to solve problems. I get your logic, I get that it's sound, BUT you're not seeing the whole problem. What is a different way to solve this problem that won't add to your criminal record? You can sometimes get the first count expunged, and if you work with me, I will try my damndest to help you do that. Let's come up with other ways to solve this problem."

So, the first thing to realize in this kind of therapy, is that you don't owe anyone a goddamn thing. I mentioned before that kids with external loci of control are often OVERLY empathetic, and that actually LEADS to acting out, because you genuinely feel like you need to help this person by beating their ass so that in the future they don't get straight-up murdered for running their mouth.

Here's the thing, though. Fuck um.
That's it, that's pretty much the whole therapy for problem identification for problem-focused coping mechanisms. "Is this YOUR problem?" "No" "Then FUCK IT". It's not on you to educate anyone or to prepare anyone for the world. If you do that, it's out of the kindness of your heart but it is not your responsibility. Fuck it. Not your problem. Sometimes people will try to foster problems off on you, but that doesn't make it your problem. You can remove a slew of problems by just saying "fuck it".

Here's the three question "fuck it" system for identifying what is and is not a problem for problem-focused-coping mechanisms.

"Does this need to be done/said?"
If "Yes"
"Does this need to be done/said right now?"
If "Yes"
"Does this need to be done/said right now, by me in particular?"
If "Yes" you have an actual problem. If "No", fuck it.

This is actually called "letting go" but goddamn it feels so much better to say "fuck it" and works so much better when you do it that way.

So, for this example:

"Does this girl need her ass whopped?"
Yes
"Does this girl need her ass whooped right now?"
Better now than later when someone might kill her.

That's not a solid "yes". If it's not a solid "Yes" then it ain't your problem. You can still choose to engage in that problem, but that's activism, not something that you are /required/ to do.

Now, we identify any thought schema that purports to be a problem, and- again, this may sound stupid- we pretend that it is being suggested by some outside force, not from ourselves, so we can evaluate it based on the system I just discussed. Like literally give this outside source a name. I call mine Chad because he just... he seems like a Chad. They will actually start to have a different voice, after a while, and you can identify them instantly as coming from Chad. Chad then has to /convince/ you that this is your problem, and /convince/ you to act. It sounds stupid, but it works. Chad also sounds like 14 in my head and weirdly a lot of people say that their intrusive thought schema voice sounds a lot younger than their other thoughts and I honestly don't know what that's about because no one has ever really done any research about it, it's just like, a fun fact.

So anyway, you identify what the negative thought schemas are, and you give them an external source, like Chad, or Bethany, or whatever you want it to be. Do not use a real person that you're close to. You can use celebrities. But don't make it someone you know in real life.

Now, again with the journal- journaling is really helpful. Write down what Chad says to you and why he's a fucking asshole.

Chad: We should kick her ass
You: Why? (notice that everyone with an internal locus of control questions 'Why' for every external source BY DEFAULT, they are born unable to stop doing this)
Chad: She's out running her mouth.
You: Does she need her ass kicked for that?
Chad: Yeah, if we don't stop this one day someone stronger is going to kill her
You: So? Fuck that bitch. She stole my boyfriend. Let her fuckin die. I'll show up at that funeral looking hot as hell and watch that cheating asshole cry over the double whammy of his dead bitch and the ex he ain't never getting back.

After a while of this, you start to realize that Chad doesn't actually have a good reason for any of the stupid shit he wants you to do. Like... at all. And if you won't put up with that nonsense from anyone else (and you won't) you sure as fuck ain't gonna put up with it from your own brain.

Now, then, again, we move past problem identification to things that are actual problems that need to be solved. And this is... actually a really shitty situation because it's another example of a place where the system is just failing our kids. There is no real protection for a kid with an external locus of control in a situation where the problem really did just need to be removed completely, and they were unable to do so by legal means (you do teach them alternative problem solving skills, like calling the cops, telling a teacher about the bullying, pretty much giving the problem over to someone else who is in a position of power to deal with it). If they do everything right, turn the problem over to the proper authorities to deal with- that should remove the problem and it should be over and done with, as far as processing cognitive schemas go.

But our system doesn't work like that.
Often we train these kids to use these coping mechanisms, and they do, and then the authority doesn't protect them. They tell a parent, or a teacher, or a cop- but we have records of cops, again and again, especially in family first states, returning abused children to their abusive caregivers, dragging them kicking and screaming back to abuse. You remember that little girl who was in the news recently because she had been kidnapped as part of a human trafficking sex slavery ring? She was being raped, and was afraid she would get murdered, so she eventually had to make a decision- and she killed her rapist.

The courts gave her a 51-year murder sentence. This was a kid who should have been a sophomore in high school. Her biggest problem should have been whether or not she finished her English paper on time for full credit because she had to study for her driver's permit that week. She had no other options. She had no other way to remove the problem.

Chad: We have to kill him!
Cynthia: Why?
Chad: BECAUSE HE'S LITERALLY GOT A GUN, HE JUST RAPED US, AND HE'S A HUMAN TRAFFICKING CHILD SEX CUSTOMER WHO HAS A GUN AND HAS EXPLICITLY SAID HE'S GOING TO KILL US! I WANT TO LIVE!

We see this A LOT. Our juvenile detention centers are FULL of children who came into the system, learned all the coping mechanisms in the world, and it wasn't enough to protect them. The monsters are real, but they're not under the bed or in closets, they're in our streets, and sometimes there is no escape. Sometimes the only way to remove the problem is with a bullet, or a knife, or your fists, because no one will help you and there's literally nothing else you can do. You can do everything right and still fail, and it can destroy your life. People don't believe you. People don't help you.

There are over 30,000 slaves in the world today.
Child abuse and neglect in my state are so high that it's impossible to properly police.

Took a dark turn. Let me see if I can pull it back.

TLDR: Yes, different Loci of control are genetic and innate, and they are not random. We have an entire series of procedures and evaluations that include loci of control when screening the risk factors for "at risk" children. Behaviors are influenced by loci of control because they generate different thought schemas, and everyone acts based on their thought schemas. So behavioral disorders are going to be different, based on loci of control, in predictable ways that can aid in diagnoses and treatment, and which, if implemented properly, can help to negate issues before they get bad enough to manifest physically in behavioral disorders.

This is all very general and not explained super well, so I hope it made sense. Sorry I got kinda dark there at the end. I just... really, really feel like we can do better. That's been the bullet point in all my posts in this thread. I have faith in humanity, that we can move forward, that we can do better. We're failing kids now, but we know exactly why, and how to make the world a better place by having more preventative treatment, more intervention, more child advocacy, more child-first rather than family-first laws. We can do better, and we will improve. We'll do it if developmental psychologists and child advocates have to drag the school, prison, and court systems into the future kicking and screaming like toddlers out of a toy aisle.

Bramblethorn said:

Thanks for elaborating on this - that was a really interesting read.



(Or its non-US counterpart - UK, Canada, Australia, many other places have similar laws, though the details vary.)

The catch, at least here in Australia, is that you do need an Official Diagnosis of some kind of neurodivergence to request accommodations... and "diagnosis" is also spelled "pre-existing condition". Which isn't as big a problem here as it is in the USA, but it's still a consideration, and part of why I held off for a long time on seeking that diagnosis for autism. So probably best to read the fine print on your healthcare.

(hooray, let's penalise people for being proactive about mental health care, there's no way that could go wrong...)

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You have to have a diagnosis here too, and have it registered as a disability. Which is... not ideal, but you can probably tell from my situation that I don't give a fuck to call it a disability because it is. I don't get money or anything for it, but I do need reasonable accommodations and I don't think that's too much to ask.

This is why I encourage everyone to look into it BEFORE you need it. You need to have your paperwork filed with HR pretty much as soon as you get hired/accepted into the school/whatever. It kind of makes you an ass if you ask for accommodations without being able to prove why you need them, you need to have that done first. And you can't sue if you didn't have that shit on file. You have to be proactive.

I've always been very open about my 'insanity' because I just... honestly have never been able to make myself give a shit for a bunch of reasons, and because I think it combats the stigma if people see people who go to school, have jobs, raise kids, do hobbies- you know, see neurodivergent being normal human people who have a disorder, rather than as scary monsters. A lot of people say that mental disorders are an 'invisible' disability, and I think we need to improve visibility. I'm not here to make neurotypical comfortable. I'm here to live my life. If you don't want to sit next to the crazy person YOU can move. If you don't want to work with the crazy person YOU can quit.

It wasn't something I ever felt any shame about, so I stride in there on the first day with my medical records to HR like, "Oh, btws, I'm FUCKING CRAZY. I hope y'all got money in that company health plan because I didn't let you run that cost benefit analysis before you hired me and I'm on like 8 different meds to keep me sane and they ain't givin' those away. I tricked you! I played y'all like a goddamn fiddle! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

That stigma pisses me off so much that sometimes it's fun to lean into it as a joke. Laugh so you don't cry and all that.

nayia said:

Thank you so much for writing this out, it gave me a new way to understand myself, my husband, and my students (I'm a high school teacher).

As much for my own sanity as anything else, my philosophy in dealing with disruptive students is just to assume that they don't know better, to explain very clearly what is expected and why, and to explain the options and the results of each choice. It's a much better alternative than stewing about the bad manners, disrespect, and immaturity that many adults (teachers and non-teachers alike) complain about when dealing with children.

Personally, I feel like I've switched from external to internal. I was in an abusive relationship for a while and after I escaped it seemed much better to attribute the way he treated me to my own behaviors and appearances than to imagine a world where someone could out of the blue have such a strong desire to cause pain to me.

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You don't know how many kids you've probably helped by doing this. You're one of the good ones.

You can't really shift your locus of control, it's pretty much set, that you get the one you get. I might have explained it poorly. Having an internal locus of control doesn't mean that you don't think other people have power of their environments, it means that you think the individual shapes the environment, whereas someone with an external locus of control thinks the environment shapes the individual.

So with abuse, we obviously see survivors from both loci. But the fact that you're saying that his desire to cause pain came "out of the blue" is indicative that you have an internal locus of control. People with external loci tend to see people's behaviors as dictated by the environment and will therefore make excuses for their abuser.

I mean, every survivor has probably made an excuse of their abuser at some point. The difference isn't really that one makes them and the other doesn't, it's that their negative thought schemas are different. It might go something like this.

Internal: He's doing this because I've made him angry. I never should have said that stupid thing in front of his friends. I did this.

External: He's like this because his parents didn't love him enough. They probably made him feel like shit every time he said something stupid, and now he's lashing out at me. The environment did this.

Having an external loci of control absolutely does not make you immune to abuse. You see it with everyone. And cognitive and emotional manipulation can really fuck up anyone- and some abusers can adapt their methods to control different kinds of people.

Like remember how I said that people with external loci of control need the world to make logical sense more than they need to understand rules? There's a technique abusers use called gaslighting that exists to make the victim not trust their own senses. They'll lie about things that the victim is already not that invested in at first, then slowly move onto big things until the victim can't make sense of the world. This keeps them in a constant state of frustration, which causes them to lash out in a behavioral outburst-

And once you've hurt your abuser, once you have that outburst and hit them-

It gets real, real easy to believe that you're the abuser and they're the victim. Normal people, good people, don't stay this confused, don't hurt the people they care about, not even in self defense, because they said- god you can't remember anything anymore- was it even in self defense? Who threw hands first? You can't remember.

I'm super glad you got out, though! Congratulations!

CandiCame said:

You have to have a diagnosis here too, and have it registered as a disability. Which is... not ideal, but you can probably tell from my situation that I don't give a fuck to call it a disability because it is. I don't get money or anything for it, but I do need reasonable accommodations and I don't think that's too much to ask.

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I'm uncomfortable with framing my autism as a disability/disorder because that's so heavily tangled up with norms. Some things are harder for me than the average person, and that makes me "disabled"... but other things are much harder for the average person than for me, and that doesn't make them "disabled". It's like, I dunno, if a French person was visiting the USA, and we classified them as "communication deficits" because their English is limited.

Or, to put it another way - even with the difficulties it does cause, it's not something I'd ever want "cured". I just want people to meet me halfway on some stuff instead of always expecting me to come 100% of the way towards them, and yelling at me when I only make 90%. That's exhausting.

At the same time, pragmatically, the legal protections etc. are all wrapped up in "disability", so if I want to ask for accommodations beyond what my work would give by default, that's what I need to invoke.

(Acknowledgement that some autistic folk do experience autism as "disability", and I don't mean to undermine their experience - just talking for me and people in the same boat as me.)

Thankfully, my current work is a pretty good place, so I haven't had to pull a formal diagnosis in order to get support. And the stuff I am good at is directly useful to my job, which makes me valuable to them, and I try to use that to make things a bit easier for younger staff who might not feel so safe disclosing. But I think I've reached the point where I ought to have that diagnosis just in case I do need to invoke those formal channels.

I've always been very open about my 'insanity' because I just... honestly have never been able to make myself give a shit for a bunch of reasons, and because I think it combats the stigma if people see people who go to school, have jobs, raise kids, do hobbies- you know, see neurodivergent being normal human people who have a disorder, rather than as scary monsters. A lot of people say that mental disorders are an 'invisible' disability, and I think we need to improve visibility. I'm not here to make neurotypical comfortable. I'm here to live my life. If you don't want to sit next to the crazy person YOU can move. If you don't want to work with the crazy person YOU can quit.

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This is a thing that I'm aware of with autism, but I expect it's applicable much more broadly to mental health issues - you'd know better than me, no doubt.

The ontology of autism is largely framed in how much we inconvenience those around us. Terminology like "high-functioning" vs. "low-functioning" goes directly back to the Aktion T4 mentality of distinguishing the folk who were Burdens On Society from those who could be put to useful work. When autism is being diagnosed, or when treatments are assessed, so much of it is about whether we're weirding other people out, whether somebody's going to have to pay money to feed us, etc. etc... and so little of it is about whether we're happy. So a non-verbal autistic person who stims when they need to is "low-functioning" and somebody who burns themselves out trying to minimise burden on those around them in "high-functioning".

(And I'm certainly not saying that it doesn't matter how we affect other people. If I stare at somebody in a way that causes discomfort, that's an issue and it's not just on them to get over it. But I wish there was more balance between "how do you affect society?" and "how does society affect you?")

I think part of the frustration is that I've reached a point in my life where friends and co-workers are generally accepting, I could be myself without stigma... but I've spent so long learning to "act normal" that I'm not sure where the real "normal" for me is, if it still exists. Some of those fitting-in behaviours have become so deeply ingrained that it's hard to recognise when they're causing me stress, and when I do experience that stress it's hard to pick apart the causes and find solutions.

/rant

Bramblethorn said:

I'm uncomfortable with framing my autism as a disability/disorder because that's so heavily tangled up with norms. Some things are harder for me than the average person, and that makes me "disabled"... but other things are much harder for the average person than for me, and that doesn't make them "disabled". It's like, I dunno, if a French person was visiting the USA, and we classified them as "communication deficits" because their English is limited.

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I'm responding to the whole thing, I just didn't want to screen stretch and I don't have a lot to add. I just wanted to say that I totally get why some people don't want to embrace the label "Disabled" and that the term itself kind of reeks of ableism. I'm able to divorce myself from that kind of thing for pragmatic reasons; because for me the rewards outweigh the risks.

Autism is one of the kinds of neurodivergence that has that stigma full force because it's kind of in vogue to shit on autistic people right now for reasons beyond my comprehension. The thing is, because "disabled" people are such a huge diverse group, if there is a more acceptable label with a less shitty mindset for people to self-identify as I don't know what it is. I've heard a lot of people use "cripplepunk" but I'm actually not comfortable reclaiming cripple. I'm not sure why, it just makes me really uncomfortable.

As for the second part, we're actually supposed to say "high assistance" vs "low assistance" rather than "low functioning"/"high functioning" but that's a really recent thing and I still refer to my own function levels all the time just because that's what I was used to. The reason for that change is that it's supposed to be more focused on the individual but it's weird because it's... literally not?? It's focused on the caregivers.

Labels are hard because you have to have something, for treatment plans and the like, but it's hard to come up with anything that isn't horribly insulting. This is one of those situations where I honestly don't know what to do.

Wild_Honey_66 said:

I'm here!
<snip>
I am enormously grateful to have had, at times, people to meet my needs for acceptance, approval, attention, affection. They were bright spots in a dark sky, they gave me a taste of what life and love ought to look like, and they give me hope.

2019 will be a hard year, I'm sure of it. But it will be a good year, too. I'm determined.

Tally fucking ho.

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Honey.



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Nothing to add to this conversation - just wanted to thank everyone for sharing your stuff. It's been illuminating; I appreciate the insights.

cookiecat said:

Honey.



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Nothing to add to this conversation - just wanted to thank everyone for sharing your stuff. It's been illuminating; I appreciate the insights.

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cookie