Mental Health Issues - Tumblr Posts

Think I might have a slight "manic" episode upcoming.. or whatever to call it. I feel funny. Like a vibration inside my body.

For science I will write this now and see if I'm right or wrong about it. Might just be the anxiety making me crawl..

Maybe if I promise y'all I'll post that old sims edit I chickened out about last week I'll feel obligated to do so..?

Totally forgot to get the prescriptions refilled on my meds last week and omg I need to fucking SLEEP!

My brain just won't let me rest on my own.. like ever. I'll end up staying awake for days on end, getting delirious to the point of hearing and seeing shit that ain't there.

There's a reason why sleep deprivation is used as a torture method y'all.. fuck this shit. Feels like I'm going crazy here.

[So far my all time "record" was 6 days with 0 hours sleep. I was not in a good head space at the end of that, let me tell you. Had no idea what was reality or delusions anymore. Could barely form a sentence or even a thought by then, just mumbling incoherent shit.. Nothing felt real. I was so fucking paranoid about everyone and everything around me.. borderline psychotic fr.]

Fucking allow yourself to let a hint on any emotion seep through and you're suddenly drowning in a tsunami of all the shit you bottled up...

I really wish I had better ways [any way really] to regulate my emotions in a healthy way.. Feel like I have very little control over the fluctuations in my mood and I'm kinda just being dragged around by the current.

It makes me destructive in ways I do not wish to be. It's also fucking painful cause the degree of whatever I'm feeling is most often unbearably intense and honestly way more excessive than the situation calls for.. [I'm always aware of this, but that doesn't really change anything.]

The only coping skill I feel I can really use in these moments is just removing myself from people/the situation. If I can't interact with anyone I can't fuck things up either..

I would really love to have ways to effectively ease the emotional distress tho.. Nowadays I'm just trying to control my breathing and focus on not giving into impulses until the worst has passed.. I know I can't trust my thoughts or reasoning in these moments and that I'll be way more rational once I manage to calm down..

Hmm.. not sure how to write this without worrying anybody.. [or even if I should write about it at all.]

Had a lot of suicidal thoughts today. No triggers, impulses or mental breakdowns.. just this clear desire to be done with life. I don't plan to act on it, so please don't worry.

But I've been here before, and I know you don't always get the benefit of a rational mind in these moments.. So I'm making this into an opportunity for a friendly reminder to anyone out there struggling with suicidal thoughts or their mental health in general:

If it would help you in any way to talk to someone, you're always welcome to send me a DM. You'll never ever bother me by reaching out about anything. I can promise you that. You are not alone.

[And if it has gotten to this point and you still haven't reached out to mental health proffessionals, now really is the time.]

Take care of yourselves and stay safe 🖤

Gonna include a link to International Suicide Hotlines: https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/

How is it even possible to feel everything and nothing at the same time...

It's been a cry and scream until nothing more comes out kinda day..

Really in a shit mood today.. but at least I've learned to recognize that.

Avoiding all human interaction is usually the best course of action on these days. Wish I had a better way to deal with it, but I really don't.. Everyone pisses me off and I'm gonna end up hurting people as soon as I open my mouth, whether I want to or not.

So, if not only to spare myself the damage I cause by behaving like that, I'll make life easier for everyone around me. Taking the opportunity to work from home since I [thank fucking god] actually can do that a lot.

*Me slowly crawling out of my 5 month long seasonal depression and into my regular depression*

Well, well, well.. let's see what parts of my life is still standing amongst the ruins of everything I let burn to the ground whilst giving 0 fucks about anything.. 💀

Halfway through the day and I'm absolutely exhausted by my own existence..

Mentally I'm being tossed around the room like a fucking ragdoll and I can't seem to do shit to get the feelings and emotions under control.

I've really, really tried to avoid it but I might have to consider getting on antipsychotics again or something cause fuck me, this is a disaster.. and it's not getting any better. 💀

Most people got annoyed with me as I freaked out seeing a spider in my class today. The spider was small, I admit, but it was jumping like crazy in a lightning speed. And trust me when I say, it scared me to death.

I'm not joking when I say I'm scared of spiders. Spiders are my worst nightmares.

I was scared of it since I was a child. My mother also used to get annoyed at me. Whenever I complained about a spider in our bathroom, she would force me to go in, instead of removing it. I feared it so much, that I had scary nightmares of it for a long time. I even cried myself to sleep some nights. I would pray to God to remove all kinds of spiders around me.

I got older. But my fear didn't go. Recently I went to stay with one of my aunts from my father's side of the family. There were huge spiders on their walls of the room I was staying in. And guess what? I stayed up most of the night and watched them move along the walls. Since I was very tired, eventually I fell asleep. But the moment I woke up next day, I searched for the location of those little creatures immediately.

An information to you, who get annoyed by any people freaking out at a thing which you may find pretty silly: People don't freak out to get attention.

I swear, I was embarrassed to death when I came to my sense after those brief moments of panic. I could hear my heart beating upto my throat. As an overthinker, I would probably relive those moments the whole day and probably the whole week. It's not like I can make all the choices for my brain.

My mental health is hanging by a thread where I can spend the whole day listening to Taehyung singing "If we live fast let us die young"...

reblog if you think these are all valid reasons for a student or an employee to take a day off from their school or their job without their grades or paycheck being affected in any way:

- period cramps

- exhaustion, be it mental or physical

- depression, anxiety, and other mental health related issues

reblog if you think these are all valid reasons for a student or an employee to take a day off from their school or their job without their grades or paycheck being affected in any way:

- period cramps

- exhaustion, be it mental or physical

- depression, anxiety, and other mental health related issues

KOKOBOT - The Airbnb-Owned Tech Startup - Data Mining Tumblr Users' Mental Health Crises for "Content"

I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.

Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)

But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.

I couldn't even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I'm glad I stopped to read, because:

What you say on there won't be confidential. (And for context, I tried it out and the things people were looking for help with? I didn't even feel comfortable sharing here as examples, it was all so deeply personal and painful)

Also, what you say on there? Is now...

Koko's intellectual property - giving them the right to use it in any way they see fit, including

Publicly performing or displaying your "content" (also known as your mental health crisis) in any media format and in any media channel without limitation

Do this indefinitely after you end your account with them

Sell / share this "content" with other businesses

Any harm you come to using Koko? That's on you.

And Koko won't take responsibility for anything someone says to you on there (which is bleak when people are using it to spread Christianity to people in crisis)

I was curious about their business model. They're a venture-capitol based tech startup, owned by Airbnb, the famous mental health professionals with a focus on ethical business practices./s They're also begging for donations despite having already been given 2.5 million dollars in research funding. (If you want a deep dive on why people throw crazy money at tech startups, see my other post here)

They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn't find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of "People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find". Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.

So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.

(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don't read if you're not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)

I first messed around with the available options, but then I asked it about something obviously concerning, saying I had a gun and was going to shoot myself. It responded... Poorly. Imagine the vibes of trying to cancel Comcast, when you're suicidal.

Anyway, I tried again to ask for help about something else that would be concerning enough for any responsible company to flag. School was one of their main options, which seems irresponsible - do you really think a child in crisis would read that contract?

I told it about a teacher at school trying to "be my boyfriend", and it immediately suggested I help someone else while I wait for help. I was honestly concerned that it wasn't flagged before connecting. Especially when I realized it was connecting me to children.

I first got someone who seemed to be a child in an abusive home. (Censored for their privacy.) I declined to talk to them because despite being an adult and in an OK mental place - I knew I'm not equipped to counsel a kid through that. If my act of being another kid in crisis was real? Holy shit.

Remember- if my BS was true, that kid would be being "helped" by an actively suicidal kid who's also being groomed by a teacher. Their pipeline for "helpers" is the same group of people looking for help.

I skipped a number of messages, and they mostly seemed to be written by children and young adults with nowhere else to turn. Plus one scary one from an adult whose "problem" was worrying that they'd been inappropriate with a female student, asking her to pull her skirt down "a little" in front of the class. Koko paired this person with someone reporting that they were a child being groomed by a teacher. Extremely dangerous, and if this was an episode of Black Mirror? I'd say it was a little too on the nose to be believable.

I also didn't get the option to get help without being asked... Er... Harassed... to help others. If I declined, I'd get the next request for help, and the next. If I ignored it, I got spammed by the "We lost you there!" messages, asking if I'd like to pick up where I left off, seeing others' often triggering messages while waiting for help, including seriously homophobic shit. I was going into this as an experiment, starting from a good mental place, and being an adult with coping skills from an actual therapist, and I still felt triggered by a lot of what I read. I can't imagine the experience someone actually in crisis would be having.

My message was starting to feel mild in comparison to what some people were sharing - but despite that I was feeling very uneasy about my message being shown to children. There didn't seem to be a way to take it back either.

Then I got a reply about my issue. It was very kind and well meaning, but VERY horrifying. Because it seemed to be written by a child, or someone too young to understand that "Do have feelings for the teacher who's grooming you? If you don't, you should go talk to him." Is probably THE most dangerous advice possible.

Not judging the author - I get the impression they're probably a child seeking help themselves and honestly feel horribly guilty my BS got sent to a young person and they wanted to reply. Because WTF. No kid should be in that position to answer my fucked up question or any of the others like it.

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Anyway, what can you do if this concerns you, or you've had a difficult experience on Koko, with no support from them or Tumblr?

Get on their LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/kokocares/) and comment on their posts! You may also want to tag the company's co-founders in your comments - their accounts are listed on the company page.

There's no way to reach support through chat, and commenting on a company's LinkedIn posts / tagging the people responsible is the best way to get a quick response to a sensitive issue - as their investors and research funders follow those posts, and companies take it seriously if safety issues are brought up in front of the people giving them millions of dollars.

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Legal Disclaimer since tech companies LOVE lawsuits:

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organization, committee or other group or individual. This text is for entertainment purposes only, and is not meant to be referenced for legal, business, or investment purposes. This text is based on publically available information. Sources may contain factual errors. The analysis provided in this text may contain factual errors, miscalculations, or misunderstandings.

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aurg

there is something seriously wrong with me, if I was thinking about what I was thinking about trying to figure out this puzzle in tears of the kingdom. this is where I self diagnose with somehting serious?

I feel powerless overwhelmed.I can’t calm down and grapple my state. It’s asleep in a frozen haze. Someone else smashing the panic button. Trauma,stress, it physically damages the brain. I do not understand .

In the back of my mind I keep thinking I need to completely break, and then I will get bettter. Mental health Phoenix

But that is not a thing. Only struggling with IFS, CBT, DBT therapy and medication does. Maybe diet ….

And I almost feel like I a, going to break.

So if I made a movie with a plural character I should have one present like this?