u/StarryShapes

My life has been on a bit of a go-slow lately and in need of a momentous reignition to get things moving. Ive been meditating on the situation to see what changes come to mind to improve things and I had an idea.... I decided to embody the Ace of Wands at a wedding we were going to with a fantasy theme. My partner is a photographer and enjoys doing concept portraiture so I dressed as "The Ace Of Wands" which included crafting a wand with crystals from my collection, a rose quartz point, labradorite, sodalite, a small piece of agate and a small piece of amethyst and decorated it with "witchy"/pagan/decorative symbols and found a beautiful oak tree at the wedding we attended and "became" the Ace of wands. Picture 1 is my fave shot from the occasion (unedited) since then (2 weeks ago) my social calendar has absolutely FILLED UP things have gone WILD, Ive started 3 creative projects and finished 2, I'm _FEELING_ more creative and excited about starting projects and have invested in some more creative tools for my creative work.

Which card do you think you would like to embody or it would be helpful to embody?

I'm Autistic, have ADHD and am bipolar and one of my special interests is collecting crystals but with a very specific caveat, the best ones in my collection have to be "discovered" or "come to me" rather than "chosen" at a crystal shop.... I do buy smaller ones at the going rate but my bugger pieces in have found in charity shops and car boot sales for ridiculous prices.... I want to share those with you here.... Most of them i can identify for sure but one of them im still not absolutely certain what it is.

First up in picture 1 is my Ocean Jasper tower, it weighs over a pound /550g and is approx 8cm tall and 6cm wide at its widest (its wider and flatter one way round, and narrower in the position in the picture) i dont know the true value but I paid £4 for it at a car boot sale and it was covered in greasy dust.

Picture 2: this is the one Im not sure about. Ive had people say its a variety of dalmatian jasper, (I dont think it is) k2 (im absolutely CERTAIN it is not) amongst other speculations so maybe someone here can identify it. It has a kind of depth to it, almost a translucent quality I can take a closer picture if anyone wants to see one. I paid £5.50 at a car boot sale its approx a 5cm sphere

Picture 3: Im fairly certain that this is a larvikite sphere and around 2.5- 3cm. I paid £2 in a charity shop. Their price sticker left terrible sticker residue on it that was super hard to get off. Have no idea what its worth.

Picture 4: a 3.5-4cm sphere of unakite. I thought it was some kind of Jasper when I found it at a table top sale at a local village fête and paid £3.50 for it where I found it in a box of bric-a-brac mixed in with loads of naff ornaments and brass paperweight and stuff. I was worried it might be chipped but its immaculate. Again, no idea of the value.

Picture 5: a 9.5cm green fluorite sphere that i found in a really dark animal sanctuary charity shop that was really disorganised and full, floor to ceiling woth e erything you could think of, this was in a box of photo frames and glass ware. I paid £7 for this and some tea light holders. It was covered in glow in the dark star shaped stickers that didnt glow in the dark and stuck on dust but otherwise IMMACULATE. I have no idea what its worth.

Picture 6: my 11-12cm (somewhat scuffed) Selenite sphere that i would like to get refinished. This was an absolute steal. I found this whilst I was on holiday in Wales in a hospice charity shop for £9 I know its worth a lot more than that, but how much???? There are no deep chips just surface marks and I know that Selenite is very soft and easily marked. Is getting it refinished a good idea?

Picture 7 and Picture 8: a Lapis sphere: car boot sale find 4.5-5cm sphere, paid £10 this and the Labradorite palm stone with the pink/purple flash off the same vendor. They didnt have any other crystals or id have probably bought more from them.

Picture 9 and Picture 10: labradorite rough chunk with the blue flash polished side. I know this is not all that valuable I just love labradorite and I paid £7 for this and the other lab rough stone with the pink/purple/blue/gold flash from a charity shop together. Both as one item. Also bought 3 wooden mushrooms from that shop. .

Last picture, my massive blue sodalite 7 inch tower that weighs 600g paid £14 for this (my most expensive item hahaha!) From a dog rescue fund raiser near my home last year.

Behold! (Lol) my flourite 10cm sphere... I found it in a charity shop for £6 about 7 years ago covered in dust and sticky label residue and I love her. I have no idea what she is worth but she weighs about 650g (1.43lbs) so she's pretty weighty. Much heavier than she looks!

******TRIGGER WARNING MENTION OF R*PE AND CSA NO DETAIL ALSO MENTION OF MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES SOME DETAIL AND MEDICAL PTSD SOME DETAIL AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SOME DETAIL******

I wanted to write a bit about diagnostic journey, im 45 now and was diagnosed Autistic 6 years ago when i was 39 and ADHD about a year ago. Dyspraxic at the same time as my Autism diagnosis. And Ehlers Danlos Syndrome about a year before my Autism diagnosis which is what led to me seeking an Autism assessment. The Rheumy who diagnosed me was an expert in hypermobile spectrum disorders/Ehlers Danlos in the UK and well aware of the link with Neurodiversity and sorted the signs in me and recommended i seek an assessment ASAP. I had no idea til that point and just knew that I massively struggled with everything to the point where id had to give up my flat and move in with my mum AGAIN cos I wasnt coping AGAIN.

I was diagnosed with BPD in 2000 after I was R*ped during a job interview in Birmingham in a chinese herbal medicine shop where I was suposedly going to be doing some artwork for the walls.

I had severe PTSD afterwards and told the psychiatrist about the R*pe and he didn't believe me. I also told him about historic CSA and he didn't believe me about that either. I saw a letter written to my GP and it literally said (i remember it VERBATIM because it was so painful to read the words are literally scorched onto my brain "L CLAIMS to have been r*aped and to have been.ab*sed as a child. *NEITHER STORY SEEMS THAT CONVINCING*" Anyway I decided there and then I was done with psychiatrists and the NHS mental health service. What was the point of being honest if they just called me a liar?

The thing was I had good friendships who i have still hung on to some of, I have a couple of froends in my 40s who I have had since my teens, I do not go to desperate measures to avoid abandonment, I did self harm quite severely at times requiring medical intervention at times, and I had tried to commit su*cide on more than one occasion. Im not an intensely angry person, I never have been, im more angry now that im menopausal, lol, im not given to dramatic mood swings from one moment to the next, though I am bipolar so it can change from one day to the next and I can cry easily, im not moody though not in a BPD way. Im not manipulative or weird in my relationships in a way to avoid them breaking down but in a way that causes them to break down. I dont have chronic feelings of emptiness in the sense of the "hole in the soul" I have a sense of "unfulfulled potential" in terms of my ADHD and my physical health have put the kybosh on every single plan ive ever had to succeed at anything I cannot understand the diagnosis being inflicted on me other than that I am female presenting (i am non binary AFAB) And have a history of self reported trauma and have self harmed and at that point had extremely low mood. And I got lumbered for the next 25 years with the BPD diagnosis.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar type 1 in 2007 when I had a full manic episode with delusional magical thinking and delusions of grandeur and all sorts.... I tried to start my own religion (gave out finger cymbals and leaflets for "The Kingdom of Urch on Kings Heath High Street in Birmingham for an Afternoon trying to drum up interest 😂), I thought i had the key to world peace (transmitting intelligent love atoms through "significant looks" at other people - primarily complete strangers - who would then receive the love atoms and unknowingly spread them with their own "significant looks") i was a very happy manic person but extremely vulnerable and they sectioned me after about 3 months on home treatment monitoring my mental health and trying to stabilise me. My Agp Suggested that I might have ADHD and I rejected it.

I spent a year inpatient on a therapy program in hospital where it was first suggested that I might be Autistic and I rejected the idea I was 27. And despite struggling my WHOLE LIFE I just couldnt risk having that on top of everything else. I was diagnosed with bulimia because the bipolar medication made me gain massive weight and I really started struggling with food and that happened.

I came out of hospital and moved into own flat and really struggled. Id been in a shared hpuse before and struggled there but bills had been included. Once I had to pay my own bills I fell apart and realised that I just couldn't cope with money AT ALL. I got into terrible debt. I just cant conceptualise money. I couldnt cope with keeping my environment clean and tidy and organised and manage food storage or anything really and got mice and in a terrible mess. I had a horrible psychiatrist and developed PTSD symptoms around medical trauma from my psychiatrist and psychiatric nurse at the mental health team who were vile to me, they kept medicating me for bipolar but denied that I had it removing the diagnosis from my record saying that there was no evidence for it ! Just saying that i was BPD. I was so depressed.

Then began the wilderness years of just not coping with living alone, abusive relationships and failing at life so badly that I had to move back home to my mums after my dad died because I was living in squalor, not washing or eating or going out I was so anxious I didnt go to appointments or sleep the only thing I went out for was to walk my dog. I was massively taken advantage of financially, I was domestically abused coercively, sexually, physically.

So I moved in with my mum my health was massively declining woth my Ehlers Danlos which the NHS were blaming on Fibromyalgia and refusing to diagnose appropriately and look at holistically, so I went privately and had diagnosed by a specialist. Id developed severe dysautonomia and secondary gastric issues and a hernia that wasnt diagnosed because of the EDS that the NHS were missing because they weren't diagnosing the EDS and when it was diagnosed the diagnosing consultant wrote to my GP recommending a referral to gastro, cardiology, rheumatology locally, orthotics, physio, and a bunch of other disciplines and they ALL found stuff that was wrong. Dysautonomia, hernia, severe Osteoarthritis in multiple joints that needed treatment, gastroparesis, swallowing problems, neurology flund a chiari 1 malformation and cervicocerebral instability, I was genuinely a physical mess and nobody had been listening to me.

He also recommended an Autism and Dyspraxia assessment which I had and both were diagnosed. They recommended an ADHD assessment which took me 5 years to get around to (lol) and that was also diagnosed. I recently moved out of my mums and in with my autistic partner who is better with money and organisation than me and have a support worker to help me with money and organisation of stuff and we are working at life again. My current partner is kind and not a dick.

Ive also had my bipolar diagnosis reinstated. My new psychiatrist is nice.

So its been a massive journey

Sorry if youve read all this craziness I just had to write it out.

Here's my mums dog if you need some light relief. Hes very cute.