I have an idea

and would like input.
I'm thinking of making a YouTube channel where I talk about BPD and other mental illnesses, because there's not a lot of stuff made for mentally ill people by mentally ill people, and I think a focus on BPD could be good because there's very little out there for borderlines by borderlines.
some topics I might cover:
- slurs (legitimate ones, things you shouldn't use)
- psychosis (what it means, what it is, managing it, how people can help you, etc.)
- BPD (what it is, managing it, problem-solving around it, treatment for it, how people can help you, etc.)
- AVPD (same as for BPD)
- DPD (same as for BPD)
- depression (different types/what it is, managing it, how people can help you, etc.)
- anxiety (same as depression)

I know stuff like this can be a magnet for assholes and shit but I think I can handle it, so I'm curious what other people think. like, is this a good idea? I've gotten a couple yeses and one no, so....want other opinions.

 

oh my gosh it would be so wonderful if you did

i know someone with bpd who would find that incredibly helpful

 

well, I am aiming to help people, so yay!!
I want some more opinions, but right now I'm really heavily leaning towards 'gonna do it'.

 

yeah, I mean, there really aren't that many slurs? there are like....two words that I consider words that really shouldn't be used, but only one, I guess, that I'd really call a slur, and it's not the one that affects mentally ill people...so maybe I'll just say 'I feel this word contributes to negative stigma around certain mental illnesses and think it should be used differently than it is, but it is not a slur'. and I mean that word is kind of widely used and I don't know how well me talking about it would go over but I'd like to talk about it anyway because I feel....the way it's generally used is kind of not good, and I feel like it contributes to people thinking badly of psychotics/schizophrenics. that word would be 'psycho'.
....I feel like it contributes, in the way that it's often used, to people hearing 'psychotic' and going "you're a crazy motherfucker who's going to try and kill me while I sleep/do some other sort of violence". but context is important, so it's less a slur and more just 'a word you kinda shouldn't use in certain ways', I guess?
regardless, I am glad you think this would be a cool idea!! I'm not tooooooooootally sure I'll do the video on the word psycho. maybe I will as a vent video, but not talk about it being a slur. but the rest of it I definitely want to do, and I think I'm gonna, since a bunch of people now have been like "you should go for it".

 

after some contemplation, I'm gonna do this! I'm gonna do the thing!
I'll probably start with just...an introductory video, like "yo this is a channel that will be talking about mental health and mental illness with a focus on BPD" and then go from there.

 

ideas for early videos, putting here so I don't forget:
1. introductory video (boring but necessary)
2. Borderline Personality Disorder: A Summary (a general overview of BPD, and where it comes from)
3. PTSD: A Summary (a general overview of PTSD, and where it can come from, as well as the leading causes of PTSD)
4. Avoidant Personality Disorder: A Summary (a general overview of AVPD, and where it comes from)
5. Dependent Personality Disorder: A Summary (a general overview of DPD, and where it's thought to come from)
6. Schizotypal Personality Disorder: A Summary (a general overview of STPD, and where it's thought to come from)
7. Depression: A Summary (a general overview of the types of depression that exist)
8. Psychosis: A Summary (a general overview of psychosis, what it is, and what disorders it encompasses)
9. Anxiety: A Summary (a general overview of the types of anxiety disorders that exist)
10. Bipolar Disorder vs. BPD (the differences and similarities between the two and how to tell them apart)
11. It's Not as Bad as You Think (a video about the ways our mind can play tricks on us and make things seem terrible and horrible and awful and hopeless, a general thing for multiple disorders, with examples of how this works in AVPD, BPD, depression, and anxiety.)
12. Misconceptions About BPD (the things people think of those with BPD, and why these things are not true)
13. Friendships With AVPD (a general video about how difficult it can be for a person with AVPD to maintain friendships, and some ways that a person with AVPD can work around the anxiety that comes with trying to maintain friendships)
14. Friendships With BPD (a general video about how difficult it is for us to maintain friendships, something I don't think many people realize)
15. What's A Depended? (a general video about what the word 'depended' means and how it plays into DPD)
16. A Day in the Life of a Borderline (basically a summary of what I experience going through a typical day--the mood swings, how things affect me, etc. not going to be an actual summary of my actual day, just a discussion of what it's like to deal with things as a borderline. i.e. something goes wrong? this is the end of the world! someone rejects you? you are lost and forever alone, everyone hates you! etc.)
17. Misconceptions About DPD (while not as widespread as misinformation about BPD, there are some really bad misconceptions about DPD that I've encountered, and this video would talk about those and why they are not true)
18. Mind Reading: Not a BPD Power (working title, idk. basically a video about how we tend to pick up on other people's emotional states, and then the assumptions we make, the most common one being 'someone is angry -> they are angry at me', and how to avoid this 'mind reading'.)
19. Small Steps to Independence (also a working title. basically, a video for any dependent person who wants to work on being more independent, and how to take small steps towards that goal, and how to learn to deal with the fear of abandonment and the fear of not being able to take care of yourself)
20. Borderlines Are Not Pets (again, working title, but this is a video about how I've seen a lot of stuff over the years about 'training your borderline', and why that's disgusting and wrong, because we're not pets for you to train)
21. Self-Care: Different For Everyone (a discussion of how important self-care is for dealing with any mental illness, and how it can mean totally different things for different people, with some examples of different types of self-care)
22. Destructive Habits (a discussion of the destructive habits that can come with BPD, and how to stop or deal with them or work around them. includes mentions of: overspending, self-harming, overeating, having unprotected sex with strangers, other ones that I can't think of right now because tired.)
23. Why I Hate the Word 'Psycho' (basically, this is more of a vent video. it's about why I hate the way the word 'psycho' tends to be used and how it contributes to the stigma around psychotic disorders.)
24. Emotional Mapping (this is going to teach a technique my therapist taught me for managing meltdowns, wherein after a meltdown happens, you go through each thing that happened, pinpoint what you were feeling at each thing that happened, and pinpoint what feeling/thing caused the meltdown. then you make an effort to be more aware of that precursor-to-meltdown feeling, and when you identify it, you take a couple deep breaths and then walk away from whatever's making you feel like that.)
25. Intrusive Thoughts (a video about intrusive thoughts, how they play into different disorders {particularly types of anxiety disorders}, and some ways people can sometimes manage them.)
26. Abandonment and BPD (working title. a video about how to learn to reign in your fears of abandonment so you don't do things like freak out at people because they're abandoning you, or send a million messages because they didn't answer the first one.)
27. What's The Worst That Could Happen?: AVPD Edition (a video about AVPD, and how we feel that someone saying no/us saying no is the end of the world, and how to stop thinking about this as such a horrible thing, as well as how to start learning when to put your foot down, because neither someone saying no nor us saying no is really the end of the world.)
28. It's Not A Dichotomy (also a working title. a video about black and white thinking/all or nothing thinking, and how these things aren't accurate, and ways to start thinking more in shades of gray and less in...dichotomies.)
29. What's The Worst That Could Happen?: Anxiety Edition (a video about anxieties, and how we can come up with worst-case scenarios and obsess over them, and how to calm yourself when you're obsessing over a particular scenario.)
30. When You're Feeling Unwelcome (a video about the struggles of feeling unwelcome and unwanted as a result of BPD, and how to handle it)
31. Trauma-Based Yoga (a brief description of trauma-based yoga, what it is, how it works, and what it helps, because sometimes the suggestion of 'do yoga' is actually a legitimate one.)
32. Diagnosed Young: BPD (a video about whether or not you can be diagnosed young, and whether or not you want to be, will talk some about the stigma around BPD but also how important it is to get into treatment for BPD as soon as possible)
33. Comorbidity (a video about how disorders are often comorbid, still fleshing this one out)
34. Misdiagnosed: BPD Edition (a video about what BPD can be misdiagnosed as, and what it's most commonly misdiagnosed as)
35. The Demons Aren't Real (working title. a video about hallucinations and voices, and some ways to cope with different types, geared towards people like me, who are afraid of their hallucinations but simultaneously realize they aren't real)
36. Splitting (a video about splitting, what it is, how it works, and how to manage when you're splitting.)
37. Misdiagnosed: DPD Edition (a video about what DPD can be misdiagnosed as, and what it's most commonly misdiagnosed as)
38. Your Hobby Isn't Your Personality (a discussion about shifting self-identity. still fleshing this one out.)
39. You're A Good Person (a video about how none of us are inherently bad, geared towards people with BPD, because we tend to think we're inherently terrible, but just supposed to be a general uplifting video where I explain that no one is inherently bad. sounds cheesy but I think it's important.)
40. How to Handle Emptiness (a video about the chronic feelings of emptiness borderlines usually experience, and how to manage them healthily.)
41. Getting A Diagnosis (how to go about getting a diagnosis if you've done your research and think you have something)
42. Not Every Borderline... (a video about how not every borderline does certain things and not every borderline has certain traits, and everyone's experience of BPD is different. includes discussion of how not every borderline has 'good' traits of BPD, such as being empathetic or very sensitive to emotions and caring.)
43. Self-Diagnosing (a video about what I think of self-diagnosing, and my opinion on whether it's valid or not.)
44. BPD Does Not Doom You (a video about how a diagnosis of BPD doesn't doom you to being abusive or a bad person, and how these things are just part of the stigma around BPD, and it doesn't have to define you and it doesn't make you a bad person.)
45. 'Scary' Mental Illnesses (a video about some of the 'scarier' mental illnesses, like psychosis, schizophrenia, and DID, for example, and how the 'scare' factor is hugely a stigma around these illnesses, and how they're not really that scary in actuality.)
46. DBT Doesn't Work For Everyone (a video about what DBT is, and what to do if DBT isn't working for your BPD, including some of the things my therapist taught me that aren't DBT-based, and some other treatments available for BPD.)
47. Be Honest With Your Therapist (a video about the importance of being honest with your therapy and why this is important, at least in my opinion, and the importance of having a therapist you trust and get along with because of this.)
48. Recovery: Is It Possible? (a video about whether or not recovery is possible with BPD. spoiler alert: it is.)
49. If The Shoe Doesn't Fit, Don’t Wear It (a video about finding the right therapist/psychiatrist for you, and how to know when to run the other way from a professional, and how to go about finding the one who works for you.)
50. BPD Beliefs (some beliefs I find to be common in BPD, and why they happen and how to combat them.)
51. Self Harm Needs to Be Understood (a video about self-harm, why it happens, why people might do it, and the stigma around it.)
52. How to Stop Reacting to the Past (a video about the BPD tendency to react to something that happened in the past because something in the now reminds you of, and to treat the two situations as though they are the same, and how to avoid doing that.)
53. the obligatory ‘it’s been a whole year!’ video
54. Be Gentle With Yourself and Others (a video about the importance of being gentle with yourself during recovery and being gentle with others as they are recovering.)
55. Discontentment and Why It Happens (a video about the general discontentment feeling that often accompanies BPD, sometimes for no real reason, and how to deal with it in a healthy manner until it goes away.)
56. Helping During a Psychotic Episode (a video about how you can help someone who's experiencing a psychotic episode, geared specifically towards frightening hallucinations/delusions, with a mention about delusions of other kinds at the end.)
57. Being Self-Focused (a video about how borderlines often end up very focused on themselves and things that affect them and how things affect them, why this happens, and why berating us about it isn't a good idea, as well as how to try and refocus on others.)
58. Let's Talk About the Word 'Schizo' (a video about the word schizo, why I feel like it shouldn't be used, and how it contributes to negative stereotypes about schizophrenia/schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.)
59. Building Myself (basically, a video about how I, as a person with BPD, hang on to a coherent image of who I am, and how I built that image of who I am, in the hopes that it might help others with BPD to be able to develop somewhat more stable self-images.)
60. Schizophrenia: It’s Not DID (a brief discussion about what schizophrenia is, what DID is, and that they are not the same thing.)
61. Emotional Sensitivity and BPD (a video about why borderlines are so emotionally sensitive, what happens when we have an overreaction, and what it's like to be an emotional sponge.)
62. STPD: No, I'm Not Into Socializing (a video about STPD and how it can make it so that you really just aren't into socializing, and why it's not great to try and force a person with STPD to 'just get out of the house, because it'll be good for you'.)
63. BPD: Brain Biology (a video about some of the science done to find reasons why BPD happens, and some of the ways scientists speculate our brains might be different from those without BPD.)
64. Schizophrenia and Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders: Stigma (a video about the stigma around schizophrenia and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.)

going to edit this list as I come up with more ideas/flesh things out. if people have video ideas please share.
my hopeful schedule is one BPD video every other week, one non-BPD video every other week, except for the very beginning, because I want to get summaries of disorders out of the way.

 

!!! yes this is a good

 

I like this plan :D

 

Please do this, I know a lot of teens/young adults from the homestuck fandom who desperately need this video series.

 

This sounds like an excellent plan :)

 

okay, so, I'm recording the intro video today, editing it this week sometime, and posting it this coming Saturday! would people like me to link it here, as the first video of the channel?

 

yes please :)