User:TheresNoTime/Mental health

ADHD
I have ADHD-C, for which I am medicated - the current drug I am on is really helpful, so thankfully the majority of my symptoms are well managed.

What is ADHD-C?
ADHD-C is the "combined type" of both ADHD-I (inattentive type) and ADHD-HI (hyperactive-impulsive type).

How this affects my contributions
My most disruptive symptom is my memory - I quite often forget to follow up to talk page messages and emails, and no number of lists and reminders (of which I have a lot!) will prevent me from sometimes forgetting I've agreed to do a task.

Wikipedia comes fairly low in the ranking of important things to remember, so if I'm going to forget anything it'll be something here - sorry!

How you can help
These are only suggestions, I manage well enough without them ✨
 * Remind me if I've not replied to a talk page message/email or completed a task I said I'd do
 * Follow up any emails you send me with a YGM on my talk page

Psychotic depression
The majority of this has been taken from my blog post on the matter, because I'm lazy and re-writing things is boring.

What is Psychosis?
Psychosis has a very unfair reputation – not many people outside of the context of working in mental health fully understand what it means.

The NHS defines it as:

"Psychosis is when people lose some contact with reality. This might involve seeing or hearing things that other people cannot see or hear (hallucinations) and believing things that are not actually true (delusions)."

- NHS

And the UK charity Mind summarise the condition as:

"Psychosis (also called a 'psychotic experience' or 'psychotic episode') is when you perceive or interpret reality in a very different way from people around you. You might be said to 'lose touch' with reality. The most common types of psychotic experiences are hallucinations, delusions and disorganised thinking and speech. Psychosis affects people in different ways. You might experience it once, have short episodes throughout your life, or live with it most of the time."

Most people have unfortunately formed their opinions based on how a “stereotypical psychotic person” behaves in movies and on TV, and this tends to involve violence, threats and a wholesale inability to be reasoned with. They are the “textbook crazy”, but this is for most intents and purposes, a wholly inaccurate portrayal.

For me, and I really can only speak for myself as psychosis is different in everyone, this presents as more on the delusional side than the hallucinatory side, with a severe episode causing havoc to my ability to work out which thoughts and memories are real, and which ones aren’t.

So here I am, going on the record and saying that I suffer from psychosis (specifically psychotic depression), and that I have experienced episodes for a couple of years – these temporarily altered states of mind can be so severe that they affect almost every part of my life, or so mild that I can work around them fairly easily.

How this affects my contributions
I’ve never mentioned any of this on Wikipedia until the start of September 2021, nor have I ever seen the need to.

For the past few years I have rigorously ensured my actions on Wikipedia have never been influenced by my condition – I am normally self-aware enough to at least identify the onset of an episode and step away from the site.

I hold myself to a very high standard and continuously review my actions, but as an episodic condition I am "fine" until I'm "not fine" - and when I'm "not fine", I don't log into Wikipedia.

I need to make clear that I am able to function normally and have this condition, and I hope by doing so it helps other editors with similar issues feel more at ease about contributing.

If you feel this is a problem
Some of you may think that either/both of these conditions should preclude me from holding advanced permissions, or should at least cast my contributions in a different light - I understand your viewpoint but respectfully disagree for the reasons given above.

That being said, I consider myself as accountable as any other administrator/checkuser/oversighter, and explicitly waive any "potential leeway" an investigating body may wish to apply - if you believe I have made a mistake, you should contact me in the first instance, then escalate as you would with any other functionary.

An aside on mental health in general
The English Wikipedia attracts editors from every walk of life, and we need to be better prepared to deal with situations which arise from editors with less-than-perfect mental health. The essay Wikipedia is not therapy may well try to touch on some aspect of this, but in my opinion it falls short - yes, our project is not an alternative for therapy, nor should it blindly allow those with disruptive mental health conditions carte blanche to edit and cause problems.

Taking a moment and applying common sense, patience and understanding costs us nothing, expands our editor base and could well support a fellow human in their road to recovery.

In closing, I do not wish to be a high-maintenance editor, and this mini-essay will likely be the sum of my on-wiki "declaration". Please do attempt to treat me as you always have and certainly don't "cut me any slack"! I'm not brave or special for getting through this, so many people deal with this on a daily basis.

Email
As with anything, please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns - I'm happy to answer them from anyone regarding this.
 * I'm not a doctor, so please don't email me asking if I think you have psychotic depression. It took a long time to diagnose.
 * Although I have experience volunteering with the Samaritans, I am not the right person to contact if you yourself are in crisis. See Mental health resources for help now.
 * Please don't make me regret being open with the community