IRL Mental Disorders/Problems That YOU Have

[imperial.standard]

Hmm, so would you say it's better to live your whole life with diagnosed ADHD and have that knowledge to develop strong coping mechanisms yet also have that feeling of being different. Or would it be better to never know and live your life relatively normally, except with a chance of complete breakdown of your poorer coping tactics?

This is no preference - it really depends on the said person. Knowing yourself better is ALWAYS great so you know how to work out your maximum potential, but it quickly becomes BS if this is being used as an excuse of not performing/hiding behind known weaknesses as an excuse of not doing things properly.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Not having any mental disorders (that I know about, at least), I joined this project after offering a few ideas in the thread about Mentaru Shoujo in the Katawa Shoujo forums. Being a doctor's son and a fan of Dr. Oliver Sacks (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, etc), I've always found these sorts of disorders very interesting.

Also, being a computer programmer, I'm familiar with the Turing test, which is a sort of computer intelligence test. If a person has a long, complex conversation via text and can't tell if they're communicating with a person or a computer program, the program has passed the Turing test.

The Turing test seems to relate here, because the same rules of that test to make the test "fair" for a computer also apply to many symptoms of human mental disorders; you can't tell how long it took someone to write a sentence, or if writing it triggered facial tics, or if it was emotionally difficult to write, etc. Text messages remove tone of voice, body language, and so forth, which can actually help in communicating with someone who has difficulty discerning such cues in person, since both ends of the conversation have these cues removed.

Even these things --> <-- apply. Emoticons were originally created to indicate that a statement should not be taken seriously, after flame wars erupted by people missing sarcasm and other types of humor in the early days of the net -- a sort of artificial autism.

As is pretty obvious in this thread, a lot of disorders are very hard to spot using this medium of communication. I can't really tell anything different about e.g. Worthington's or Hamadyne's posts compared to other people. That's one of the most interesting things I've noticed since starting on this project.

[Dorigard]

Hmm, so would you say it's better to live your whole life with diagnosed ADHD and have that knowledge to develop strong coping mechanisms yet also have that feeling of being different. Or would it be better to never know and live your life relatively normally, except with a chance of complete breakdown of your poorer coping tactics?

This is no preference - it really depends on the said person. Knowing yourself better is ALWAYS great so you know how to work out your maximum potential, but it quickly becomes BS if this is being used as an excuse of not performing/hiding behind known weaknesses as an excuse of not doing things properly.

While not exactly the answer I was looking for, it is an insightful answer.

[imperial.standard]

Sorry I can't give you a better answer Dorigard. This is the truth however - you will have to see how this ADHD is giving you in your life and how to deal with with. In my personal experience, the short focus is always a problem but when something caught my attention, the euphoric high feeling that comes with that focus is extremely good. Suddenly the energy to do something becomes really boundless and the usually "lethargic & lazy" me suddenly becomes impatient and full of energy/initiative.

I don't know if this is a sufficient explanation but I hope you get my gist?

[Dorigard]

Sorry I can't give you a better answer Dorigard. This is the truth however - you will have to see how this ADHD is giving you in your life and how to deal with with. In my personal experience, the short focus is always a problem but when something caught my attention, the euphoric high feeling that comes with that focus is extremely good. Suddenly the energy to do something becomes really boundless and the usually "lethargic & lazy" me suddenly becomes impatient and full of energy/initiative.

I don't know if this is a sufficient explanation but I hope you get my gist?

Like I've said, I live with ADHD, I understand exactly what you mean. For me it's not exactly a euphoric high, it's more "It feels good to be able to concentrate on this, to get this thing done. I hope it lasts longer than last time."

[imperial.standard]

Like I've said, I live with ADHD, I understand exactly what you mean. For me it's not exactly a euphoric high, it's more "It feels good to be able to concentrate on this, to get this thing done. I hope it lasts longer than last time."

Yes I also get this most of the time. When that high/good feeling exhausts itself out the rest of the activity become so dragging. This is why to assist my real life activities I draft people to remind me to do things and I actively distract myself in order to be able to get into the unfinished tasks with energy

[Genero6]

I feel like I spend way too much time discussing my own issues here. I normally avoid them and am less serious and more casual, but I have a rather limited capacity for social activity and it's mostly taken up elsewhere, so you lot just get the boring leftovers. This also means I'm even less likely to respond to others here, but I promise I'm listening, at least. Always interesting to learn more about you all.

Another one with Aspergers here. Similar negatives as Hamadyne, only I missed out on any positives, so I'll skip over the common symptoms. Instead, life story time: While I showed obvious signs of it when I was very young and ended up seeing a variety of psychiatrists and therapists, they only diagnosed me as manic–depressive, and essentially decided to not do anything - psychiatry was not strong in Australia back then. Everyone in my family suffers from depression, so dealing with that was inevitable. As a result, my school years were a complete mess. I was considered either a genius or a retard by most, and eventually dropped out. I followed the family to another country, the Netherlands (not far from MDV actually), but I'm terrible at learning languages so I still barely understand Dutch, leaving me with even less social contact. I did end up seeing therapists who were aware of Aspergers, and was quickly diagnosed. By now though, I have a cripplingly low self-esteem, to the point of not being comfortable in the same room as somebody else out of fear I'll bring them down in some way. This tends to overshadow the Aspergers a bit, but I have similar problems as others - can't face a person directly, can't follow their line of thinking, can't handle large social environments, and even talking one-on-one leaves me tired.

Do I tell people about my condition? I don't find it worth bringing up, but then it's been years since I've had proper interaction with anybody who wasn't involved with support and knew my condition beforehand, so it's not really an issue. I'd really rather not get into it with strangers, but I've had strangers assume I'm on drugs before, so I guess it depends on how I think they'll respond to me.

[VacuityMechanica]

I have IED.

[TheLastMelody]

Big chunk of text incoming

Code: Select all

I was diagnosed with AS and ADHD-PI also known as ADD. I don't believe that the psychiatrist whom diagnosed me was entirely right, sure I do have many symptoms of ADHD-PI, but I think I have other symptoms too.

I got meds from an age of 9, I think, I was way stronger than other kids my age at that time. I also had a very fiery temper, I had to go to anger control therapy (wich did not help at all). Less than a year after I started taking meds, I started feeling that they did not help at all, I told my mom and the psychiatrist that I did not want to take more, both refused my suggestion of stopping to take meds, therefore I pretended to be taking meds, but I ended up spitting them out the window while no one else was looking. They found out and gave up trying to give me meds. After I went to some different places, met new people. One day when I was visiting a friend, he had made a shield of planks and firewood, he gave me a big log and asked me to hit the shield as hard as I could(to see if his shield was strong enough to withstand it). I took the log, and hit the shield with all my power, I shattered some of the bones in his arm. After that episode I started thinking about how my actions affected people, how my rage affected others in the vicinity, how my presence made others uncomfortable and I figured out that I would start controlling my temper and avoid interacting with others as much as possible. That lead to the me today, a depressing little thing, doing little else than wathing anime, reading manga, eating, sleeping, going to the sh**er, reading books, listening to music, reading VN's, playing RPG's(mostly the J ones) and talking to my other selves.

[khaos4ng31]

I have IED.

One of my professor's friend also has severe IED. He took the life of this one guy. I didn't hear much about it though.


I'm kind of glad to see where the thread is going. Turned out a lot better than I thought. Not that surprised that it ended up that a lot of people with some form of autism are replying.

@Wren, some medications take a long time to have even a little effect. I know this well because I once stopped taking my anti-depressants when I thought it didn't work. Turns out the sudden drop of chemicals in my brain caused me to feel even worse. I have scars on my arms not because I cut myself not due to depression but because I was just plain curious as to what would happen (pretty stupid of me) and I think something to do with a small delusion I had thinking that someone switched my body.

Back then I would have been ashamed to talk about it. Now I feel awkward telling about it, but I no longer feel shame. So what if I injured myself. I felt no pain and it makes me stronger (but a little more crazy I suppose) than others. Doesn't help my already current belief that everyone is in someway inferior to me.

So tl;dr, try to take all your meds properly, even if you don't think they're working.

~~~~~
I'm actually interested in hearing these stories so if anybody has any stories of other people managing their mental disabilities, feel free to post them (if you have consent that is).

If you [forum posters] don't feel comfortable making the subject you or a friend, you can always use the SWIM [someone who isn't me] acronym to replace it. That way we can never truly know who it is you are talking about.

[MDV]

So tl;dr, try to take all your meds properly, even if you don't think they're working.

I'm sorry for not playing the game by the rules you named in the OP, but I can't say I agree 100% on this one. I never used medicine against my mental problems, and I got over practically all of them. Some of my friends actually got better when they stopped taking their pills. It's not a black-or-white thing. Using medication isn't always good, not using medication isn't always bad.

[khaos4ng31]

So tl;dr, try to take all your meds properly, even if you don't think they're working.

I'm sorry for not playing the game by the rules you named in the OP, but I can't say I agree 100% on this one. I never used medicine against my mental problems, and I got over practically all of them. Some of my friends actually got better when they stopped taking their pills. It's not a black-or-white thing. Using medication isn't always good, not using medication isn't always bad.

This is a discussion, so basically anything goes. Nothing wrong with expressing your opinion.

I was talking from an anti-depressant viewpoint from what I learned from experience.

[Dorigard]

So tl;dr, try to take all your meds properly, even if you don't think they're working.

I'm sorry for not playing the game by the rules you named in the OP, but I can't say I agree 100% on this one. I never used medicine against my mental problems, and I got over practically all of them. Some of my friends actually got better when they stopped taking their pills. It's not a black-or-white thing. Using medication isn't always good, not using medication isn't always bad.

I agree with you, if only from personal experience. Despite my flippant mentality, I've always liked the idea of the placebo affect, that a useless medication can have great medicinal properties if you believe it does. Because of this, I also believed the opposite was true. So despite always being told the daily pills I took were to help me, I never believed they actually did and so, they didn't. It was through multiple 'traumatizing' or 'enlightening' events (all of which were in someway caused by my ADHD (like the complete lack of forethought)) during my late Middle School and early High School years, that I learned forms of self control, self moderation, how to deal with ADHD. And halting my medication was the last step I in solidifying the new me and my new found control.

[VacuityMechanica]

One of my professor's friend also has severe IED. He took the life of this one guy. I didn't hear much about it though.

I've never gone that far, luckily. Strangled a kid (I was also a kid) because he wouldn't move once, but never killed someone yet.

So tl;dr, try to take all your meds properly, even if you don't think they're working.

Not on meds, anyway.

[splitInfinitive]

Dissociative identity, PTSD, mild OCD, dyslexia, eating disorder NOS, narcolepsy. I'd elaborate but I'm getting hit with a sleeping spell as we speak ;P

[Malkav]

This thread really has become something pretty cool. So far, I've liked reading through everyone's particular "recipe of madness", and even more enjoyed how it seems to have affected their lives. On that note, I now feel a bit guilty about not going into more detail about my history, though I can always remedy that, if anyone is curious.

Genero, TheLastMelody, Hamadyne, analane: Even though I don't have Autism (to my knowledge, anyway), I really identify with your stories. Back at a young age, I was extremely intelligent, yet also had a really hard time communicating. I used to be extraordinarily shy and anxious when meeting face-to-face with strangers, and in public, I felt uneasy, at best. I'm a little better now, but... well, I just wanted to say that I think I understand a little of what you guys go through.

Also, on the subject of medication... the body is one of the strangest machines I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Sometimes it runs perfectly smoothly. Sometimes it fails. Failure can be temporary rather than permanent. It can be minor or major, progressive or regressive. Every case is slightly different, I think, in its own way. In mine, the solution wasn't medication: it was time and calm solitude. I had to waste a year of hoping that the pills would work in order to figure that out. Solutions aren't easy to find, and they're rarely catch-all panaceas. But they're there, and for every case that exists, there is also at least one solution to remedy it. As long as the emphasis is on solving the problem, and not making a solution work, I don't think you can really go wrong.

[ShotgunNinja]

Asperger's here, anyone who has been on the public IRC knows the extent of that.

[ILY]

I'm not diagnosed with anything, but I can't shake the feeling that I probably should be.
Now I feel left out

(I don't know why I made this post, just write it off as a dumb moment and try not to take offense)

[Dorigard]

I'm not diagnosed with anything, but I can't shake the feeling that I probably should be.
Now I feel left out

No need to feel left out, as an ADHD-PI, I'm not exactly unique here either. And look at it this way, by being "normal" you're something we can compare ourselves against.

[Zarich]

I'm not diagnosed with anything, but I can't shake the feeling that I probably should be.
Now I feel left out

No need to feel left out, as an ADHD-PI, I'm not exactly unique here either. And look at it this way, by being "normal" you're something we can compare ourselves against.

Which leads us to this philosophical question of, what is "normal". For me, I am one of the users that hasn't been diagnosed with anything, I'm far from "normal", don't compare yourself to me. Xd