#ADHD so that's why this seems like a disorganised post

[basil-thoth]

THE TRANSCRIPTION PAGE IS NOW LIVE!!!

Welcome to basil-thoth, where I volunteer my time to transcribe Webcomics and Comic AUs of the fandoms I like!

My first upcoming project will be Handplates AU by @zarla-s who has indeed given me permission to transcribe her AU!

It's a 240-page comic and WILL take some time to complete, so please be patient with me!

I want to make it to where webcomics are easily accessible for those who need screenreaders.

I plan on commissioning a theme artist to help revamp this blog, but in the meantime I feel basic is best.

[stqnleybarber]

Hello! Girl with ADHD here! In my experience ADHD tends to present differently in girls, it can make them I lot more shy / inattentive, with a lot more quiet daydreaming, which is why it is often missed in girls!

So following that, now imagine the genderbent losers club! Most of this fandom headcanon Richie to have ADHD, therefore do we imagine her with the more common characteristics of a girl with ADHD or do we try and stick to her “character”

Personally, when I write the genderbent losers, I imagine her to follow the more commonly seen symptoms of ADHD seen in girls, i see her as more quiet with constant day dreaming but she can still ramble for hours about her current hyper fixation but only with the other losers or her parents, I see her as a lot more sensitive like many girls with ADHD, I see her as forgetful, quite disorganised, sensitive to noise/textures and often seems like she’s living in a world of here own.

I guess you could say i tend to push my ADHD symptoms onto fem!Richie, which is understandable, he/she is my comfort character and I like to see ADHD being properly portrayed by writers.

I’m not sure why I made this post but feel free to add your own opinions and thoughts!

-Venus

[fionawesome]

A world that wants me dead

I live in a world that wants me dead.

I didn't realise it until recently.

Until about a month ago I was naive enough to think that, because I'm not properly disabled, the world had spared me the ordeal of a life marred with death, just because I'm not useful to society. For some reason I thought that because I was managing well enough or because I'm not physically disabled that I was spared the horror of living as a disabled person in a world built for non-disabled people.

My earliest memories are of feeling different and at the age of 7 or 8 I was diagnosed with Dyspraxia, a form of developmental coordination disorder that affects motor control, coordination, memory, perception and processing.

When I was 20, The Tories (along with the Lib Dems) got into power in the UK and quite soon after they started doing their best to make life for the rich, easier, and life for the poor harder. It started with small things that could be reasoned away but after a few years their disregard for anyone who wasn't born with a silver spoon up their asses was more blatant than ever before and it wasn't long before a large proportion of the population were vocally riling against the government in a way unprecedented since they tyrannical rule of Thatcher in the 80's.

One of the first things that they started with was the dismantling of the glorious institution of the NHS. It started by underfunding services and then bringing in outside contractors as a way to deal with the difficulties faced by a health system that's crumbling and falling. It then continued with an attempt to stretch doctors so thin that medical care failed at the point of service so that, once again the services could be sold off to the highest bidder, and so that the suffering of the poorest in society could be justified in the eyes of those either, easily misled by the media, or those used to closing their eyes and sticking heads in the sands.

A while later, this assault on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society continued by making the conditions of that society so unbearable as to either force many people to commit suicide or to cause people to die after being declared "fit for work". The longer that this continued (and indeed, as it  still continues), the more blatant it became that this was an outright attack on those most in need of help and the larger the divide seemed to get between those who are classified as "disabled" (and therefore of no use to society) and those who are considered able to "function" within society (and thus, not disabled; no matter how many difficulties they).

It was around this time that I started to become increasingly frustrated with the way that society was drastically devaluing disabled people and my compassion for those who I saw as having it worse off than myself, was increased tenfold. Of course, all of this took place from inside my ivory tower of university life, reasonable accommodations and disability supremacy.

A returning theme in my life is one of self-hatred, caused by the self-doubt instilled in me by an educational system that would not deign to change itself, lest it make my life easier, or my education more worthwhile but I still held inside of me some supremacy when it came to the dichotomy between disabled and not disabled. I didn't engage in the wider disabled community because because I didn't see myself as being disabled enough to face difficulties on the same size/scale as those faced by people with physical disabilities. This was pure ignorance on my part, and I will never attempt to explain away or excuse my views at this point in my life because it shows a complete lack of understanding about disability and throws a fair few people (myself included) under the bus. I'm including it here to highlight how people outside of the disabled community can think about disability, and also to highlight the way in which, at one point, I disregarded the onslaught towards disabled people, purely because it didn't affect me personally.

After I graduated from university I sought out help for the all pervasive feelings of inattentiveness, and attention based difficulties and was eventually diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 23.

I eventually began to see how my Dyspraxia and ADHD were causing me issues within my life and how the world outside of student life was vastly effected by my inability to adhere to neurotypical standards of "functioning". This was so much so, that after a few failed attempts at employment  the DWP suggested that I seek help from the charity Scope. It was through this that I saw my disorganisation, inattentiveness, and general lack of knowledge about the world, catch up with me at full speed, and it was through this that I finally realised that I needed more help with my life than I was willing to admit.

Flash forward a few years and at 27 I am currently experiencing autistic burnout.

After my partner broached the topic of me fitting the diagnostic criteria for autism, and after a few years of self-examination and self-discovery, 6 months ago I started self-diagnosing as autistic.

It was around this time that I started to feel my whole world fall apart.

I've asked myself so many times whether this is all related to my realising that I'm autistic, or whether it's all just some cosmic coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence that's for sure, so mostly my answer has landed on "shit I'm autistic, I should probably be autistic". Of course this is an over-simplification and implies that I had any choice in the matter which is simply untrue, but I can't help but feel like on some level, once I realised I was autistic I became more autistic on purpose. This probably isn't the case and there's plenty of anecdata to suggest that it's a natural progression in the life-cycle of diagnosis for an autistic person (self or professional).

The point is, that I started to feel as if my whole life was falling apart. I could no longer organise myself as easily as I was once able, I was finding social interactions increasingly difficult and I was finding the world of employment to be filled with sensory, emotional, and cognitive challenges on a daily basis. There was a period of about a month where this got so bad that every time I woke up I was (with barely any sensory input), overwhelmed by everything and was forced to either sit in bed on the verge of tears, or fall back asleep in the hope that facing the world might be easier after a nap. It was during this time that I eventually created a set of "communication cards" to allow me to help myself communicate effectively during moments of distress or overload, in the hope that I could regain some kind of "control" over my life and my descent into "burnout".

Whilst this form of alternative communication has proven very useful for me and has helped me on countless occasions, it did nothing to slow my descent into burnout. That, it seems, was inevitable.

It is in the depth of this burnout that I realised a few key things.

The first is that I need to figure out better ways of taking care of myself. My current strategy of burying my head in the sand and hoping that things will get better on their own is damaging not only my mental health but also (at times) my physical health. This is something that I can do something about and it is something with measurable outcomes that allows me to attempt to improve my life, or at the very least navigate the difficulties that I face on a daily basis.

The second is that I live in a world that wants me dead.

It's taken me a long time to come to this realisation but it is undoubtedly true.

I see this now.

I live in a world that constantly devalues my existence, that insists that I adhere to neurotypical standards of "functioning" and of "productivity". I live in a world that will NOT under any circumstance change the rules because my brain cannot follow the rules already set in place. I live in a world that will throw me to one side and close their eyes to my daily struggle, just because it's not their problem. I live in a world that drives compassionate people into media-driven malevolence, towards those who need some help. I live in a world where I do not ask for help on a daily basis because I know that there's not much chance it will make any difference.

I recently wrote a long post about how I struggle with incontinence and after seeing various doctors, multiple times I have given up on ever finding out why it's an issue, and just resorted to "navigating" the issue myself.

I did have a referral for an ultrasound on my bladder but I missed it because I had a last minute, emergency, appointment with the out of hours GP at 5am that same day, because I had misplaced a whole box of my anti-depressant medication a few days earlier and was feeling an significant decrease in my mood.

I can almost hear the replies already.

"It's not up to the NHS or the government or anyone to help organise yourself."

"You could quite easily just get re-referred for the ultrasound."

I could write more but I'm too tired of this kind of shit to be bothered.

There's been plenty of proof that survival of the fittest is a lazy concept invented by dominant (white, cis, straight, middle class) people to justify their treatment of the subservient (working class, disabled, queer, POC), and I'm not going to justify that kind of attitude with a counter argument other than to say; get your fucking act together and pull your heads out of your arses before I forcibly do so myself.

I have "severe" problems with;

Attention

Organisation

Social interactions

Talking to people

Memory

Planning things in advance

Losing things

Following instructions

Sitting still

Changes in routine

Understanding social rules

The list could go on.

Why don't you try re-arranging a referral to a specialist, whilst facing these difficulties? You probably wouldn't fucking do it, let alone manage to get the second referral.

I have these problems not because I'm lazy and not because I don't try to overcome them, but because my brain works in such a way that I find these things difficult.

I did not choose this. I do not enjoy having these difficulties. I do not have these difficulties because I don't try  to overcome them.

I face these difficulties on a daily basis because this is the way my brain works.

I have no control over the fact that I find these things difficult, just like I have no control over my eye colour, or my height.

To ostracise a whole section of society and to force a great number of them to commit suicide, or be forcibly killed by unfair and unsafe assessments to their health, JUST BECAUSE of something they cannot control, (be it neurological or physical differences), is vile, heinous, and makes it very blatantly clear that although society believes the genocide of people (based on their differences) is consigned to our history, it is very much a part of our present.

I live in a world that wants me dead.

I live in a world that wants me dead and most people wouldn't bat an eyelid.

I LIVE IN A WORLD THAT WANTS ME DEAD BUT FUCK THAT SHIT I AIN'T DONE RAISING HELL JUST YET.

If you're not angry, then follow these steps;

Take your left hand.

Hold onto your right wrist.

Punch yourself in the face a few times.

See how it feels to beaten by someone who's supposed to be helping you.

Cry

With Anger

The Finnarchist/FionAwesome

Cross posted from my other blog: https://unremarkablethings.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/a-world-that-wants-me-dead/