Friendly reminder that Vincent van Gogh willingly checked himself into an asylum so that he could get better, resulting in him creating some of the most iconic paintings of his entire career, done in the asylum, when he was being treated 24/7, because he finally didn’t have to struggle with his demons and could instead focus on his muse, WHICH WERE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!
Remember this little insignificant painting?
How about this one?
Check this one out:
All of these and more were painted in the asylum when he was receiving treatment for his mental illnesses and I know I just said that but I said it again and I’m saying it a third time until you dramatic abled assholes understand!
VINCENT VAN GOGH
– KNEW THAT HE WAS MENTALLY ILL
– WANTED TO CHANGE THAT
– WENT TO AN ASYLUM
– GOT THE HELP HE NEEDED
– PAINTED SOME ICONIC MASTERPIECES AS A RESULT!
SO DON’T YOU DARE COME OUT HERE WITH THIS, “I WISH I WAS DEPRESSED SO I COULD BE AS CREATIVE AS VAN GOGH” BULLSHIT BECAUSE EVEN HE KNEW THAT HIS DEMONS WERE HARMING HIS WORK, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, HIS HEALTH, AND HE DID EVERYTHING WITHIN HIS POWER TO FIGHT THEM EVERY SINGLE DAY OF HIS LIFE, UNTIL THEY ENDED UP WINNING!
This is also incredibly important for any creative persons dealing with mental illness, and their parents.
Receiving mental help improves your craft, not hurt it. Before getting put on medication for the first time to treat my mental illnesses, my mom expressed to me how she’s worried about my getting treatment because of my art. Regardless, your mental health should be more important anyway, but, honestly, it’s a lot harder to produce good art when you struggle getting out of bed, let alone creating masterpieces. When you’re in more health, improving your craft comes much easier!
Personally I think the most beautifull painting of him was this one:
He made it when he heard about the birth of his nephew who was named after him. Still in the asylum but really happy for his brother!
“How glad I was when the news came… I should have greatly preferred
him to call the boy after Father, of whom I have been thinking so much
these days, instead of after me; but seeing it has now been done, I
started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom,
big branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky.”
Oh I have sucb rants about how “good” art comes while suffering.
No.
look at me.
The idea of the “suffering artist” comes from bunch of alcholic, drug abusing, womanizers trying to justify their bad life choices as some sort of artistic angst.
IT IS 100% BULLSHIT
Take your meds, get your therapy, be happy, and live life
“Oh yeah, every time that dad forgets mom is dead, we head to the cemetery so he can see her gravestone.”
WHAT. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some version of this awful story. Stop taking people with dementia to the cemetery. Seriously. I cringe every single time someone tells me about their “plan” to remind a loved one that their loved one is dead.
I also hear this a lot: “I keep reminding mom that her sister is dead, and sometimes she recalls it once I’ve said it.” That’s still not a good thing. Why are we trying to force people to remember that their loved ones have passed away?
If your loved one with dementia has lost track of their timeline, and forgotten that a loved one is dead, don’t remind them. What’s the point of reintroducing that kind of pain? Here’s the thing: they will forget again, and they will ask again. You’re never, ever, ever, going to “convince” them of something permanently.
Instead, do this:
“Dad, where do you think mom is?”
When he tells you the answer, repeat that answer to him and assert that it sounds correct. For example, if he says, “I think mom is at work,” say, “Yes, that sounds right, I think she must be at work.” If he says, “I think she passed away,” say, “Yes, she passed away.”
People like the answer that they gave you. Also, it takes you off the hook to “come up with something” that satisfies them. Then, twenty minutes later, when they ask where mom is, repeat what they originally told you.
I support this sentiment. Repeatedly reminding someone with faulty memory that a loved one has died isn’t a kindness, it’s a cruelty. They have to relieve the loss every time, even if they don’t remember the grief 15 minutes later.
In other words, don’t try to impose your timeline on them in order to make yourself feel better. Correcting an afflicted dementia patient will not cure them. They won’t magically return to your ‘real world’. No matter how much you might want them to.
It’s a kindness of old age, forgetting. Life can be very painful. Don’t be the one ripping off the bandage every single time.
I used to work as a companion in a nursing home where one of the patients was CONVINCED I was her sister, who’d died 40 years earlier. And every time one of the nurses said “that’s not Janet, Janet is dead, Alice, remember?” Alice would start sobbing.
So finally one day Alice did the whole “JANET IS HERE” and this nurse rather nastily went “Janet is dead” and before it could go any further I said “excuse me??? How dare you say something so horrible to my sister?”
The nurse was pissed, because I was “feeding Alice’s delusions.” Alice didn’t have delusions. Alice had Alzheimer’s.
But I made sure it went into Alice’s chart that she responded positively to being allowed to believe I was Janet. And from that point forward, only my specific patient referred to me as “Nina” in front of Alice—everyone else called me Janet, and when Alice said my name wasn’t Nina I just said “oh, it’s a nickname, that’s all.” It kept her calm and happy and not sobbing every time she saw me.
It costs zero dollars (and maybe a little bit of fast thinking) to not be an asshole to someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia. Be kind.
I wish I had heard this stuff when Grandma was still here.
I read once that you have to treat dementia patients more like it’s improv, like you have to take what they say and say to yourself “ok, and” and give them more of a story to occupy them and not just shut it down with something super harsh.
A nurse I used to work with always told us: “If a man with dementia is trying to get out of bed to go to work, don’t tell him he’s 90 and in a nursing home. Tell him it’s Sunday and he can stay in bed. If a woman with dementia is trying to stand because she wants to get her husband’s dinner out of the oven, don’t tell her he’s been dead for 20 years. Tell her you’ll do it for her and she can sit back down.”
Always remembered that, always did it. Nothing worse than hearing someone with memory loss ask the same question over and over again only to be met with: “We already told you!”
Just tell them again.
I’ve worked with elderly dementia patients, and I agree with all the above. Treat them as you’d like to be treated in the same situation.
A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.
This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.
THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.
You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind.
People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.
In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture.
Therefore, I present to you:
THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS
–Go on a walk
–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.
–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching
–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind
–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift
–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.
THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:
–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.
–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see.
–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in.
–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.)
–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety.
–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel.
–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless.
THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:
–List the capitals of all the U.S. states
–List the capitals of all the European countries
–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors.
–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.
–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.
Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself. I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too.
(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)
This would’ve been great an hour ago
If your anxiety includes rapid heartbeat for no reason then it may help to exercise! It helps for me because I’m focused on whatever moves I’m doing and breathing, and it gives my heart rate a reason to be that high so that I can start the slow cooking down process and (hopefully) bring that heart rate down with it. Look up a quick cardio workout on YouTube or something and just do it in your room!
This is so, SO true.
All ‘doing something relaxing’ ever did for me was give my brain MORE free time to FREAK THE FUCK OUT.
Drawing and making stuff does occupy my mind so I mean YMMV
You know how sometimes you see something at the exact moment you need it most? Thank you so much, @brianwfoster, for reminding me to keep up the fight, no matter how hard it may be.
Reblogging this from my main blog so you guys can see it.
Stop all that “you attract what you are ready for” shit. Sometimes life is just terrible. It’s not always my fault.
“Life never gives you more than you can handle.” Yes, it does.
“People are placed in your life to teach you a valuable lesson that helps your soul on its way to enlightenment.” No, there are a just a lot of people who feel empowered when they act like assholes. We live in that kind of society.
“You keep finding yourself in the same situation because you haven’t discovered the message the universe is trying to send to you yet.” Sometimes unpleasant things are stuck on repeat, because you have a mental or physical condition, and it is a symptom. Symptoms are like that.
“The truth always hurts.” No, it doesn’t, and what hurts often isn’t the truth, but is instead someone’s biased opinion.
I really appreciate this comment. Thank you thank you thank you.
You are born with the ability to see whether people listen more often to the angel or the devil on their shoulder, based on the opacity of each- if they listen more to the angel, it’s more solid and the demon is more transparent, and vice versa. You recently met a guy online and you’re finally going to meet. You go in for a handshake and glance at his shoulders, but you can’t see the angel. Only a solid demon.
Run. That’s my first thought and it keeps playing in my head over and over again. Run!
“You OK?” asks the man before me.
I realize I’ve been standing frozen, probably looking spooked. “Yes,” I fake what I hope is a convincing smile. I look back at his right shoulder, there’s nothing there, then to his left shoulder where a solid colored devil rests.
As he turns to our table I glance over the restaurant to make sure my powers are still working. There’s a woman one table away with a transparent devil and a translucent angel, she listens to the angel more. The woman across from her has a devil that’s translucent, she listens to it a little more than she should.
I’ve had this power my whole life, to see which side one listens to, but never before have I seen a completely solid devil, never before have I seen the angel completely gone…
Run!
Turning back to him I seen he’s pulled my chair out for me, watching me expectantly.
I could run now but what if he follows? Maybe it’s best I don’t tip him off, assuming I haven’t already, and sneak out while he’s not looking.
“Thank you,” I sit down.
He sits across from me and looks down, pulling on his long sleeves. “Order whatever you want,” he mumbles, “don’t pay attention to the price.”
“Oh, OK thank you.” I can barely pay attention to the menu. I glance over the restaurant, planning an escape route from the restroom.
“It was at 5:50,” he says, picking right up from where our last conversation online left off.
“I watched that video a dozen times and couldn’t see it.”
As we talk he seems just like the shy sweet boy I met online but then I glance at the devil on his shoulder and remember to be scared.
I’m looking at his shoulder so often that he glances back to see what I’m looking at. Worried about it I glance down and gape; on his arm a cut peeks out from under his sleeve.
He sees me seeing it and panics, pulling his sleeves down.
My gaze falls to the table and we sit there in silence.
This whole time I’ve been avoiding the people with the more solid devils because they listen to them more, I never questioned what the devils were saying. His devil isn’t telling him to hurt me, it’s telling him to hurt himself, that he’s worthless and doesn’t deserve me; and me acting scared of him isn’t helping.
“Don’t listen,” slips out before I’ve finished getting my thoughts together. I take in a long breath and speak slowly. “Don’t listen to the voice that tells you you’re useless, that you’ll never make a difference… You’ve made a huge difference to me.”
I risk looking up and see him teary eyed. “Thank you,” he whispers, and beside his head a barely visible angel fades back into existence.
Thank you so much for doing this prompt @hannahcbrown!
To all the amigos out there, know that you are loved ❤️
hot take: hrt, gender therapy and trans surgeries should be free
if cis people don’t have to pay to have a body that doesn’t make them dysphoric, neither should trans people
So by that logic does that mean that I should get anti-depressants and all the other pills for my mental issues for free because the people who don’t suffer from them don’t have to pay to have them?
yes
And does that mean that corrective lenses should also be free, because people with good vision don’t need to pay to see clearly, and that devices to aid in mobility for people with limited mobility (from crutches to (practical) canes to wheelchairs to prosthetics) should also be free, because people who don’t have limited mobility don’t need to pay for them?
yes? why does everyone in the notes keep trying to come up with gotchas lmao everything to do with healthcare should be free
Finding out you’re ADHD, autistic, etc, first reactions be like the ground fell out from under you, “oh my god I’m X now, on top of everything else”. Really it’s just a label for something that’s always been happening, IT’S ALWAYS BEEN THERE, it just has a name now is all that changed.
this is actually super important!!!
Huh. My first reaction was relief, knowing that I wasn’t imagining it when everything was impossible as a student.
Steel Phoenix Studios 