Hi,
Thank you for reading my blog.

I'm posting this message to give readers a better perspective of where I'm coming from.

I got interested in mental health after I started to have symptoms of PTOCD more than four years ago. This isn't a category in the DSM, but I think it accurately describes the symptomology I started experiencing then, and which I have experienced for most of the time since then.

In recent months, I made A LOT of progress in my recovery from PTSD. Right now, I'm on the "last leg" of recovery.

This "last" (in quotes, because I presume I will not become "perfect" after it, as a person's psychology is a work in progress) part of my hopeful recovery centers around my parents.

However, this "last part" of my recovery wasn't why I wanted to write this post.

In this post, I wanted to mention that for much of the past couple of years (and I think this was related to a lot, or at least some, of the progress I've made), I got involved in something I refer to as the radical mental health movement. Anyway, I've spent a lot of time in that discourse.

However, after recently going through a lot of recovery, I think I have become more moderate in certain ways, and I'm looking for new communities to explore my new, more moderate self and its psychological issues.

But given my background in radical mental health, I might approach certain things I write in this blog from a relatively radical perspective, which might be viewed as slightly "unconventional."

Again, though, I'm hoping to move away from the most radical perspectives I used to have, or at least radical approaches, as I go back to exploring more moderate ways.

As I haven't written much yet, I'll see how this goes, and how the blog ends up. (For some reason, I have anxiety talking about the radical mental health stuff in non-radical circles. Not sure why. Perhaps I'll get to explore that more via the blog .)

On days like today, I (can?) block out the darkness, and I feel like I suck a lot less as a person. I am also attuned more to the darkness that other people present. A staff person walked into the computer lab where I am, and as soon as they walked in, I knew to be afraid.

And sure enough, for whatever reason, instead of walking directly to the printer where they went (probably to check the paper), for some reason they walked around the entire room, which meant circling the perimeter, and walking past me somewhat closely. I have PTOCD and that makes me uncomfortable. Why did this triggering person walk around the room?

In my next post, I will introduce myself, and I'm hoping that will make my posts make a bit more sense to people.