Complaining as personality is a real thing. I watched it happen in a psych ward, including to myself. Your diagnosis becomes your introduction, and eventually your excuse. Everyone around me was doing it, so it felt normal. Safe, even. Because when suffering becomes your identity, getting better feels like losing yourself.
I remember the first time I laughed at something stupid on TV after a hospitalization and felt guilty about it, like I was betraying the version of me that had earned sympathy. Breaking that loop took longer than any medication adjustment, and I'm still not convinced I'm fully out of it.
SO important and so true. I have set more and more boundaries as far as who I surround myself with the older I get. It has made all the difference. If family members have toxic habits, I have been limiting time with them. Showing them grace but not feeding into their anger, sadness, jealousy. And I've all but quit social media. It's just too much. Thank you for another important piece.
The part where you said "Nobody chooses (their family) or the hardships they gave, but what they do next. The responsibility somewhere along the line becomes yours" hits so true and deep. As I have cPTSD (amongst a slew of other unrelated mental health diagnoses) due to every single year of my life being traumatic in an extreme way, there has not been a singular year that I can remember without a horrible, life and brain altering trauma. My most recent is caregivers trauma from caring singlehandedly for my dying father, doing the job of two trained nurses on my own day and night every single day of those six months with no better days, exclusively worse, harder or more heartbreaking days. But given my role of carer, that my father so humbly asked of me, (he was/is/always will be my best friend in the known and unknown universe of course I did not hesitate to say yes). That man saved my life countless times including when he sat with me in the throes of every dreadful withdrawal first from drugs and then from the worst vice I had, alcohol. Our shared forbidden vice. He had quit a decade before asking me to do the same. Begging, if I'm honest. And I did and he was right every time, life is undeniably more beautiful sober. I digress, he passed on August 14th 2025, caregivers trauma would not let me see nor access my grief until January 4th 2026. Two months later I was made redundant in my admin job, replaced by AI (you don't think it'll happen you until it does). And I made a very erratic but passionate choice to write a full Policy Reform Proposal regarding the large-scale, long-term and unaddressed gap in Australia's Mental Health System where Trauma Response Disorders and subsequent or stand-alone Dissociative Disorders should be. I researched furiously for three weeks with barely any food, sleep or personal hygiene whilst pulling from Lived Experience in my own life and the lives of the other patients I met in every mental hospital and rehab facility I became a frequent flyer at from age 13. I have never had a single inclination to be in any way involved in politics and I really, initially, wrote this for myself. But my psychiatrist read it and gave me the email address of the single most important Trauma and Dissociation Specialised Psychiatrist in Australia (holds conferences, chairs boards, busy is the world's largest understatement). But he read it. Four times. Then responded with "Olivia if I did not know your current psychician well and trusted him completely, I'd have thought this was a fourth year psychiatry student's PhD thesis review. And you say you are merely a civilian with big goals, big ideas and too much ambition to know what to do with? This. This is what you do with it. It is politically viable in a way that addresses every roadblock every politician will try to throw at you before realising you have acknowledged it and come up with your own plausible, highly intelligent and cost effective solutions. Please, CC me into any and every email you send to any MP or higher. This goes beyond your suburb, start by sending to your States MP, Regards, Professor Middleton." Well, I sent it to my State MP in the party currently in power in this country, them being the party I vote for is a happy coincident. He did not throw it out, he did not ignore it. He gathered MPs from around the country to review alongside him after his first read and they all unanimously decided to sent it upwards to the actual Policy Reform Team in my State with the goal of implementing almost all of what I have suggested in this fever dream of a proposal. And now he wants to meet with me in person to hear first hand my lived experience, my suggestions and how exactly "we" could make this happen "together". So my pain and trauma drove me to research and write a 13 page document that politicians are not only taking seriously but are trying to actively implement to help those who cannot access the same care I started to receive as a child. I am not claiming I'm going to change the world. But if I could make a positive impact on one single Trauma Survivors life, this would be worth every single second I neglected my own needs to write it. Your writing is amazing and inspiring and thought provoking. Well done.
this speaks volumes and it's quite what i needed to hear today ๐ฅน
(sighs) but what im actually frustrated from these kinds of people is that sometimes they really don't have boundaries and mostly force their way of life onto others ๐ฎโ๐จ
it's exhausting, so thank you for your reminders that misery is not the only thing that can spread ๐ฅน
Beautiful... subscribing to your substack has been one of the best things I've ever done on this app. It's like you have a way of getting into my head and writing what I feel out. Thank you Theodora, can't wait to see more of your worksโค๏ธ
Just as misery can be contagious, so can hope. I felt this...
Complaining as personality is a real thing. I watched it happen in a psych ward, including to myself. Your diagnosis becomes your introduction, and eventually your excuse. Everyone around me was doing it, so it felt normal. Safe, even. Because when suffering becomes your identity, getting better feels like losing yourself.
I remember the first time I laughed at something stupid on TV after a hospitalization and felt guilty about it, like I was betraying the version of me that had earned sympathy. Breaking that loop took longer than any medication adjustment, and I'm still not convinced I'm fully out of it.
this speaks volumes and it's quite what i needed to hear today ๐ฅน
The greatest Substack writer ever. โกโก Truly a piece of art.
SO important and so true. I have set more and more boundaries as far as who I surround myself with the older I get. It has made all the difference. If family members have toxic habits, I have been limiting time with them. Showing them grace but not feeding into their anger, sadness, jealousy. And I've all but quit social media. It's just too much. Thank you for another important piece.
The part where you said "Nobody chooses (their family) or the hardships they gave, but what they do next. The responsibility somewhere along the line becomes yours" hits so true and deep. As I have cPTSD (amongst a slew of other unrelated mental health diagnoses) due to every single year of my life being traumatic in an extreme way, there has not been a singular year that I can remember without a horrible, life and brain altering trauma. My most recent is caregivers trauma from caring singlehandedly for my dying father, doing the job of two trained nurses on my own day and night every single day of those six months with no better days, exclusively worse, harder or more heartbreaking days. But given my role of carer, that my father so humbly asked of me, (he was/is/always will be my best friend in the known and unknown universe of course I did not hesitate to say yes). That man saved my life countless times including when he sat with me in the throes of every dreadful withdrawal first from drugs and then from the worst vice I had, alcohol. Our shared forbidden vice. He had quit a decade before asking me to do the same. Begging, if I'm honest. And I did and he was right every time, life is undeniably more beautiful sober. I digress, he passed on August 14th 2025, caregivers trauma would not let me see nor access my grief until January 4th 2026. Two months later I was made redundant in my admin job, replaced by AI (you don't think it'll happen you until it does). And I made a very erratic but passionate choice to write a full Policy Reform Proposal regarding the large-scale, long-term and unaddressed gap in Australia's Mental Health System where Trauma Response Disorders and subsequent or stand-alone Dissociative Disorders should be. I researched furiously for three weeks with barely any food, sleep or personal hygiene whilst pulling from Lived Experience in my own life and the lives of the other patients I met in every mental hospital and rehab facility I became a frequent flyer at from age 13. I have never had a single inclination to be in any way involved in politics and I really, initially, wrote this for myself. But my psychiatrist read it and gave me the email address of the single most important Trauma and Dissociation Specialised Psychiatrist in Australia (holds conferences, chairs boards, busy is the world's largest understatement). But he read it. Four times. Then responded with "Olivia if I did not know your current psychician well and trusted him completely, I'd have thought this was a fourth year psychiatry student's PhD thesis review. And you say you are merely a civilian with big goals, big ideas and too much ambition to know what to do with? This. This is what you do with it. It is politically viable in a way that addresses every roadblock every politician will try to throw at you before realising you have acknowledged it and come up with your own plausible, highly intelligent and cost effective solutions. Please, CC me into any and every email you send to any MP or higher. This goes beyond your suburb, start by sending to your States MP, Regards, Professor Middleton." Well, I sent it to my State MP in the party currently in power in this country, them being the party I vote for is a happy coincident. He did not throw it out, he did not ignore it. He gathered MPs from around the country to review alongside him after his first read and they all unanimously decided to sent it upwards to the actual Policy Reform Team in my State with the goal of implementing almost all of what I have suggested in this fever dream of a proposal. And now he wants to meet with me in person to hear first hand my lived experience, my suggestions and how exactly "we" could make this happen "together". So my pain and trauma drove me to research and write a 13 page document that politicians are not only taking seriously but are trying to actively implement to help those who cannot access the same care I started to receive as a child. I am not claiming I'm going to change the world. But if I could make a positive impact on one single Trauma Survivors life, this would be worth every single second I neglected my own needs to write it. Your writing is amazing and inspiring and thought provoking. Well done.
Thank you!
this speaks volumes and it's quite what i needed to hear today ๐ฅน
(sighs) but what im actually frustrated from these kinds of people is that sometimes they really don't have boundaries and mostly force their way of life onto others ๐ฎโ๐จ
it's exhausting, so thank you for your reminders that misery is not the only thing that can spread ๐ฅน
Beautiful... subscribing to your substack has been one of the best things I've ever done on this app. It's like you have a way of getting into my head and writing what I feel out. Thank you Theodora, can't wait to see more of your worksโค๏ธ