Mental Health: It will be uncomfortable.

#1 I am going to put this up front with tags so people can avoid it. I know this stuff stresses people out and can be walls of text. This is your chance to downvote, mute or walk away for your own mental health. It is a rant into the void I suppose on the look into a mind with multiple issues.

I'll start by saying I have ADHD, Chronic Depression, Chronic Anxiety, OCD, PTSD, I'm Trans, Chronic Insomnia and a few other things. Many of which I've had my whole life due to being born with it or things causing it early in life. I'm also what they call "High functioning". Which is just a nice way of saying you are smart enough to know your screwed with these different issues and be able to do something like post. Yet be unable to truly get better.

I'll start with what it is like to be pretty far along that wonderful ADHD spectrum.

#2 All those mental health posts you see describing many of the fun symptoms? Hi! I'm the idiot with them and not the TikTok attention seeker. The fun ability to only be able to do a task when it is literally down to the wire. Hyper focus so much that pulling me away from a task will actually make that task super hard to return back to or ruin a whole day. The need for organization but being unable to do it myself unless I'm pushed into by something else such as my OCD sometimes.

The list goes on you get the idea. It makes it extremely hard to maintain a job, be around others or retain information for on demand use. Despite being in IT I do not have many certs. As I am great at doing things when you just trust me to do it, let me do it on my time and look away but you need to watch? Have me take a long test of rattling it off? I'll always fail. I cannot tell you how I took apart the engine and put it back together perfectly. I just can. It makes getting progress further hard and why I did a technical school. Job interviews are my bane because of the on demand prove yourself on a laptop in front of others.

Hell office clothes make me literally want to crawl out of my skin. I do good just to get the t-shirt and jeans feeling okay against my skin.

Hell just to make this post I've had this running in the background on loop just to distract it for several hours now.

https://imgur.com/user/thefastpaws/favorites/HNDxUUu

This is the short version of my ADHD.

#3 My depression is something I've had since I was a kid and started school. I had a principal who hated my family and took his anger out on me. My first day of pre-first as an extremely shy kid was crying because I did not want to do the chicken dance in front of others. Not a fit or hurting others but crying. He beat me with a paddle for it. This was my entire elementary life just for looking at people wrong. Parents got divorced early and many other things you've heard before. The story is short. I've had it so long I've forgotten what it is like to live without it.

There are many days I cannot even get in the shower, out of bed, apply to jobs or fill out government forms I need to fill out again. Days of extreme anger for hating myself for not being able to do the smallest of things. The sadness that even when I can smile is there. You try to tell others and you are always lazy, get feel good platitudes or something of the like. I don't have answers and talking to someone even a professional when I could is challenging. I can never trust them because I'm always worried I'll have taken what little I have by being committed. It would be a death sentence for me.

I currently am not seeing someone because the local professional never returns my calls one city over and the one in town dumped me because despite trying my best. Missing some appointments was enough for them to see me as a not trying loser.

#4 My chronic anxiety is another thing I've always had but the older I get the worse it gets. I am an elder millennial. I do not feel comfortable sharing my exact age.

Every conversation I have thanks to ADHD has a thousand threads but with anxiety I also get a a host of great worries attached to every single one. Do they hate me? Like me? I overshared again. The Christmas lights are no good. People will think you have money because a mod gifted you Imgur Emerald. Am I wrong? No they are wrong. I know this is right but that one thing they said now I will be unsure for days. They are all looking at you. Look away, go to the bathroom, no wait just sit there, no talk to them.

Usually they are more invasive thoughts though. I cannot even watch a comedy series with a couple friends like Taskmaster without dark invasive thoughts. They did that because they are black, no female, that view is so horrid they should be tossed out a window. This happens in shorts spans of times for everything. I always know they are those kinds of thoughts but it bothers me to have so many 24/7 so often. That I cannot even just sit to watch a show alone with them showing up.

They are not me but they are always there. I always try to leave a tip, say the right thing, vote to improve things, upvote messages of inequality. That bigot thought is not me but some version of something is always there. I punch them down so often it is extremely taxing.

#5 My OCD is something I rarely talk about in truth except maybe in a comment nobody will see on here because it is so bad.

I cannot take a shower without it being there. My most common pointless task that must always be followed is that the right must be even number and the left must be odd. It does not matter if it makes sense to do it I must do it. Heck, when I get out of the shower I turn the nob on the right twice to shut off, the nob in the middle is still right and also must be turned off in two turns. The left knob must be turned off more times than the other two but still odd and not add up to an even. So it generally gets "turned" 29 times to be off. If I make a mistake all the numbers of each knob must go higher till it works that way. There is no blank do over it must go higher.

When I sit in room it must be on the left and the left foot must be out slightly more than the right foot for X seconds. It is okay to swap but the left must come out on top.

You get the idea. It permeates my whole life and is untreated at this time because the one who diagnosed it retired and like with a few others on this list. All I had to prove it was her word and a piece of paper from her office. The office that no longer exists with the one that found it who disappeared into the wilds that is their retirement of their own life.

#6 My PTSD comes in a few forms. I've been stabbed before in hate for being LGBTQ. The principal beating me like the above paragraph earlier. Surviving bed bugs that lasted half a year. Constant social rejection for not being able to read social cues off of people.

I try to deal with each one when I can but often I cannot. So I isolate myself and stick with online interaction so I can dip out when an issue arrives. I cannot even sleep in perfectly safe hotels because of the bed bugs. I will be up all night feeling my skin crawl unless I pass out from just exhaustion. This can happen at home if a spider gets near me and sets off the feeling just by being close.

I do not have much to add on this one except being around other people is extremely hard but yet I must do it function in daily life. Whenever I can find a job usually lately small one time contracts if I can get one.

#7 As I said I am trans and I've made progress but never enough. As each time I managed to get some cash it was taken. A tire was blown, the transmission died, my nephew was abused and this stuff toy will make him smile. I'll give this up for a day because I don't want them to end up like me. Job loss wiping out my savings or having to move literally halfway across the country.

I've been stabbed for being trans on my left leg. I have the scar to prove it and can show that one for it but it is also just a scar. So maybe not? I've had people work against me behind my back to spread rumors, laugh at me and more. The most recent as we all know is the GOP removing rights for people like me as a broad one though.

Due to things like that I haven't gotten rid of things like the hair on my face. So I shave daily and my body dysmorphia is pretty bad. I want to claw off my own face in the shower because I am have to do it daily to pass. The few appointments I got for this one never panned out because you guessed it! Life took the money and it had to be cancelled.

I pass well though but with the other issues above my brain never lets me accept that. The voice is wrong, etc. I will no rehash it.

I just wish I had the money for a few surgeries so for once I could look in a mirror and not hate what I see. Please, no platitudes on this one. The self acceptance stuff does not change wrong hardware nor will it ever be okay to have it.

#8 My chronic insomnia that I have had a majority of my life. I can remember as far back as the first grade not being able to sleep just staring at the ceiling. So I'd read far into the night and pass out from exhaustion.

Heck, it is one of the reasons I am here tonight typing. Once again I cannot sleep even with the aid of pills and laying in the dark. So here I type to Imgur in a post I may even end up deleting because a rant into the void that does not matter ending up in the void will set off many of the highlighted issues above if it is allowed to exist. How is there for kicks?

Weed helps but only generally in higher doses and that isn't good for getting to work the next morning and not looking a little off. I cannot afford it right now anyways even with my medical card and that kills me.

Magic mushrooms also helped but due to many of my other issues. I ended up ruining any attempt at just growing them myself to help myself just quiet all the thoughts. Oh.. it was so nice though when I did get some chocolate for it. Just for a small bit of time my mind was quiet. You have no idea what that means to someone like me.

#9 I will try to wrap this up with one tiny note. Ever have to wipe things down and toss all clothes in the washer every time you enter your house due to a germ phobia I forget what it is called? Ya, got that as well yay!

Anyways if you made it this far I am not sure what to tell you or others. I wish I had the money for therapy or the ability to trust one again to not commit me. Just to help me and let me live in my awful lil rental house. It is my lil rental though and everything else is out of my price range in the area.

Hell, I was unable to find any work this past month or this one. What little savings I had is gone and I cannot afford this months rent. It is a month by month rental and the landlord ties to give me time but it still needs to be there by the end of the month without exception. I've paid late before so they get it but we are not friends it is a business to them.

I'm not sure what I am going to do and I cannot ask Imgur or other spaces for help. You guys already saved my little Salmon. That was miracle itself but even their food is low. I've tried a few of those find help things you guys link but they all take time even when I manage to get one in. Time is something I do not have.

I'm very tired Imgur. Mentally and physically but yet I cannot sleep. Despite everything and some hiccups you guys are great though. Just want ya to know that before I probably end up deleting this. You always try to help each other even if it does not work out.

This has been a look into a mind that has never actually worked. I won the negative lottery. HA! If only I could win the real one. I could change so many lives for the better. You have to play for that though and even then what a sweet life to tell yourself.