Living With Anxiety | Personal Blog

 This is more loosely based on anxiety, and rather just part of my overall mental health struggle. I will get into anxiety has been involved later on if I remember to. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, as I will be calling it) is something I have had to do a lot of research about lately because I have recently seriously considered that I may have it. I am aware it's an extreme diagnosis that can't just be tossed around like a warm towel, but I am rarely as certain about somethings as my mental health. With an asterisk, of course. DID has a lot of confusion around it so, based on my intensive research, I will give you an explanation. DID is a disorder that starts due to childhood neglect, abuse, and/or trauma. It cannot form in adulthood because it begins while the brain is still in early developmental stages. It causes a person's personality to split into multiple parts as a way to cope with trauma throughout their entire life. These parts are oft called "alters...

 This will be a bit of a different entry. For context, I am 19 and currently in college. I had to experience the entire public schooling system (besides one year of private schooling) up to this point, from Pre-Kindergarten up to my Senior year of high school. I live in the USA and have done so throughout my education. If you want an idea of the average(?) Gen Z American public schooling experience, this will be your chance to learn. Prepare yourself for a detailed recounting of some of the most hellish years of my entire life. Chapter One: Preschool (AKA Pre-K). I began preschool when I was either 4 or 5, I can't remember. I went to a school with only two teachers that educated students on how to speak basic Spanish, as well as English of course. That was the main thing I remembered about preschool education. I learned how to count to ten in Spanish and still retain the knowledge to this day: uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez. We also got the opportunit...

 I've gotten myself into quite a pickle. I've pretty much had this idea planted in my head that I shouldn't tell my parents things about myself because I feel they will get too worried and overreact. Which, I argue, is mostly not a bad thing. But somewhat recently I had that idea challenged. I have a very strong suspicion that I have autism. I have not been diagnosed because, for reasons you will find out soon, I'm afraid to ask to see a psychiatrist. But I've done a lot of research on autism. I've watched videos on people describing their experience with autism and I've related VERY heavily. I find myself struggling and getting tired in social situations. I hold myself back from doing or saying weird things, making me look stiff. I imitate others' behaviors. I stim, A LOT. I get hyperfixations, bad hyperfixations. I couldn't maintain eye contact if my life depended on it. I'm reserved. I take things way too literally. I experience meltdowns. I h...

 I've noticed something interesting.  People say that your dreams are a reflection of your reality. I definitely agree with that. I have had dreams about Radiohead (my favorite band), or Half-Life (my favorite game). I've had dreams with my real life friends in them, current or past. I've had dreams where I basically repeat something that happened in my real life but exaggerated in an AI-generated fashion by my brain. Thankfully (or not thankfully) none of these have been lucid dreams. Though, between my dreams about meeting Thom Yorke and going with my ex-friend on a strange adventure, I also have some dreams related to traumatic events in my life. There are a few examples I can pinpoint: 1. Nightmares about my old living space. 2. About my family. 3. About school. I find it interesting that my brain is so caught up on trauma in my life that it carries over into my dreams. No doubt that dreams are influenced by subjects the brain is infatuated with. I suppose trauma would ...