#For the record I'm undiagnosed but

[undiagnosed-neurodivergent-chaos]

Does anybody else with AuDHD struggle with RSD to the point of having really bad brain days or weeks where y'all end up literally convincing y'allselves that everybody hates you and that nobody can tolerate your presence?

Just asking for a friend here....

[scorndotexe]

i feel like i should give some of my characters glasses but thinking about it i don't think any of them would wear glasses. some of them might need them though

[ravenwolfie97]

Piggy backing anon. How dare you diagnose me via rotating cow lmfao

First you make me realize I'm ADHD, then that I'm autistic, the longer I follow this blog the more ND I get

Came for TOME stayed for the ongoing self awakenings ig

i am a mirror for all my followers to reflect on ✌️

[playmiya]

#SOCIALS! — as trafalgar's s/o part one

notyn: one year w the big homie 💯 tagged: trafalgarlaw liked by therealnami, vivinef, b.epo and 1,851 others trafalgarlaw: I am not "big homie" what is wrong with you trafalgarlaw: There is something deeply undiagnosed about you ⟳ notyn: good thing you're a premed then 🤪🤪 sanjiie: happy for you ig 🙄.... ⟳ notyn: sus ⟳ notyn: do u rly mean it this time

sanjiie: ᚤᛟᚢ ᛏᚺᛁᚾᚴ ᛋᚢᚴᚢᚾᚨ ᛞᛟᛋᛖᚾᛏ ᚺᚨᚡᛖ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛈᛟᚹᛖᚱ ᛟᚠ (NO LOVE) ᚷᛟᛞ ? ᚷᛟᛞ ᚺᛁᛗᛋᛖᛚᚠ ᚷᚨᚡᛖ ᛗᛖ ᚱᛖᚡᛖᛚᚨᛏᛁᛟᚾ ᚨᛒᛟᚢᛏ ᚺᛁᛗ, ᚤᛟᚢ ᚷᛟᚾᚾᚨ ᛋᛖᛖ ᚹᚺᛟ ᚷᛟᛏ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚱᛖᚨᛚ ᛈᛟᚹᛖᚱ ᛟᚠ ᚷᛟᛞ (BREAK UP) ⟳ notyn: GUYS SANJI'S TRYING TO SUMMON A DEMON AGAIN ⟳ roronoazoro123794: @ sanjiie 𓅒𓅓𓅔𓀀𓀁𓀂𓀃𓀠𓀡𓀠𓀡𓅒 (KILL YOURSELF) ⟳ notyn: @ therealnami @ nicorobin778 mothers help 😭😭 vivinef: me when :( ⟳ notyn: bae u gotta drop more hints ⟳ vivinef: shes always busy w her stupid finance stuff tho 😭 therealnami: Enroll in Nami's Hustler University now 💯 Take control of your financial future and beat the matrix 💸 💸 DM me "DEBT FREE" to learn the secrets of success 😉

trafalgarlaw: how could my day be bad when i'm with you? tagged: notyn liked by b.epo, ikkakkuu, cl1oneandonly, shachi56 and 389 others trafalgarlaw: let the record show I was held at gunpoint for this caption by @ notyn ⟳ notyn: wdym babygirl i just sent u the song n i thought u liked it 🥺 ⟳ trafalgarlaw: NAHH you literally said you'd revoke s/o privilege if "I didn't make the most emo cute photo dump ever for our one year" ⟳ ikkakkuu: @ notyn exposed 🗿 ⟳ sanjiie: @ ikkakkuu what's up my beautiful goddess ⟳ ikkakkuu: @ sanjiie boy bye! cl1oneandonly: dawg law pulling yn gotta be one of the top true crime unsolved mysteries out there 🙏 officialluffy: BIG W MY BROTHER ❗ A S/O IS NOT JUST YOUR PARTNER BUT ALSO A FRIEND FOR FUTURE ADVENTURES 🔥🔥 ⟳ shachi56: "adventures" and it's law crying about being a premed student 💀 ⟳ shachi56: btw luffy have you finished the sociology seminar assignment ⟳ officialluffy: ASSIGNMENTS AREN'T REAL

bonus ☆

a/n: i lowkey want to make a one piece in college au i have so much to say 😭

[ipso-faculty]

Is saying "intersex and/or mesosex" the same way of saying "trans and/or nonbinary"? Sorry I'm trying to (un)learn, I don't want to be seen as insensitive

No, mesosex should be thought of as a subset of intersex. I'd just say intersex. 👍️

I'm gonna give you a wall of text of context so upfront a TLDR: ���

TLDR: positioning mesosex as in between perisex and intersex is like positioning bisexual as in between queer and not-queer. Intersex people are organizing for inclusive views of intersex and trying to create a middle ground between intersex & perisex plays into conservative efforts to divide and conquer us. 🧑‍🏫

So a big difference between being intersex and being trans/nonbinary comes from the role of medicine being far, far more powerful in its control and oppression of intersex people. In a lot of ways intersex is more like disability than like other queer identities. So much of intersex identity is gatekept by doctors. Intersex people are often told they're intersex by a doctor in a context of telling them they are disordered and broken. Fostering community amongst intersex people is hard because so many of us have been conditioned by doctors to think of themselves as rare freaks.

Right now we in the intersex community are fighting a kind of desperate battle for people to understand that it is intersex people who decide who is and isn't intersex, as opposed to it being up to doctors. And the intersex community consistently says that people with PCOS, Poland Syndrome, or even no diagnosis, who feel that their experiences line up with being intersex are intersex.

Meanwhile TERFs and other conservatives are pushing real hard to keep the definition of intersex as narrow as possible. They don't want intersex people to be common or for us to find community. They're invested in a narrative that intersex people are rare, and are disorderd men/women.

Right now, the track record of treating mesosex as not intersex has unfortunately been that it reinforces those conservative narratives. It's gotten used to imply that people with PCOS aren't really intersex, that they are mesosex instead. Same for undiagnosed intersex people. 😭

Even though this is not what I intended for the term, seeing what's happened with it in the wild it's been honestly scary and upsetting seeing this term get weaponized against an inclusive view of what intersex means. (And more experienced intersex folks raised concern about this well in advance 😨.)

Intersex being an umbrella category I think there is value in having microlabels within the umbrella category, which is why I updated my definition of mesosex rather than abandon the term altogether.

But yeah I would definitely steer far away from treating mesosex as though it's in between intersex and perisex - it's really not at all analogous to being nonbinary. I'd say a better analogy is that treating mesosex as if it is between intersex and perisex is like treating bisexual as being in between queer and non-queer.

The stakes are political inclusion and organizing - politically speaking, any effort to create a group between queer and non-queer generally serves to weaken the collective organizing of queer people. Same deal with intersex. Hope that clarifies things. 💜

[yandereunsolved]

Yandere Kai Anderson w/ a psychologist reader—why is a blue haired felon psychoanalyzing you?

ꨄ︎ You were first assigned to his case after he got into his third fistfight with inmates. They put him in solitary confinement and refused to let him out until he got a psych eval. He needed one anyway. You checked through his records, and half of it was missing. The guy was in for something about running a cult?

Whoever this dude was, he wasn't someone to be triffled with. Triffle you did. Soon enough, you were his favorite out of all the people in this joint. He'd threaten people just to get a chance at seeing you.

ꨄ︎ He shows classic signs of narcissistic personality disorder, CPTSD from whatever was erased from his file, and undiagnosed ADHD. He stated that he took Adderall, which was clearly illegal because he didn't have a prescription, and he sure as hell wasn't just picking it up from the local grocery store. You tried to get more from him, and he'd just tease you. He gives you crumbs and then expects you to follow the trail. 

You know it ends up somewhere in his pants with you on your knees.

ꨄ︎ He pushes your buttons whenever you have a session with him. He gives you a teasing look and spews some manipulative bullshit. He'll give you impromptu strip teases just to try and catch you off guard. He does everything and anything to get a reaction out of you. It's all about getting you to join his cult in the end. He could use a mind like yours. It'll be fun degrading you into his dumb little slut that he can use however he pleases.

ꨄ︎ Don't expect to think your time with him ends when you leave the jail. He'll find ways to get some sort of electronic and contact you. They're always short blurbs about all the bad things he wants to do to people and how you're the only one who can help him. He plays all the right chords and yet you still produce no sound.

You want to get a restraining order on him, but you can't prove that the messages are from him. You only know because he asks if you got his little messages. You can't report that as evidence because of doctor-patient confidentiality.

So you're just stuck receiving message after message about how he wants to gut everyone in the prison and take you in the showers while he's washing the blood off. That one was a long night. You must have received over fifty texts.

ꨄ︎ Some of the sessions are just him psychoanalyzing you. He does his best to pick you apart and find your weak spot. The least bit of emotion, and he's cataloging that away in his mind for future use. He tells you intimate details about your life. They're things he shouldn't know. You begin to fear for your safety.

Who is this psycho, really?

ꨄ︎ You quit the job and begin working somewhere else. You didn't hear the news that he got out. You cut all contacts from the jail, and they couldn't find a way to reach you in time. So like a little lamb getting cornered by the lion, you wake up with him sitting above you. His hand around your throat, the other holding a gun to your head.

"I'm only going to ask this one more time. Are you going to join FIT and be an obedient little recruit, or slowly die at my hands?"

(dedicated to— @fear-is-truth)

🃜 𓆉𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 🃖

⛧ taglist: @bleper @marchsfreakshow @fear-is-truth @girlyfart @lacucarachapisser @bluerthanvelvet444 @cxndiedvi0lets @nahoyasboyfriend @coentinim @etheral-moon @taintandviolent ⛧

🃜 𓆉𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 🃖

[macgyvermedical]

I'm in the middle of a career change and a tentative asthma diagnosis (ie. no tests yet but it's on my record and my doctor is approaching it as such). What was healthcare like before protections were in place for people with pre-existing conditions? What should I do if I can't get health insurance? Should I try to get undiagnosed or something??? My symptoms are sporadic and usually mild so I can get through it without the inhaler if I had to, I'm just worried about losing access to all healthcare (also afab 😓) and want to be prepared to navigate things since I know it was way worse for chronic illnesses before the ACA.

The ACA was gigantic and it would be hard to talk about every aspect in this post.

Generally speaking, prior to the ACA, you essentially had three options. You could get health insurance through an employer, you could get health insurance through the state (medicaid), and you could get health insurance through an individual plan.

Seems pretty similar to today, right?

Nope.

See, the easiest way to get health insurance would be through a job. But if you had a pre-existing condition, including pregnancy or even simply being AFAB, in most states nobody legally had to cover you- including your employer. And if they did, they could say "you have health insurance for everything except the treatment of your chronic condition(s)" or make you pay significantly more for your premiums. Or, y'know, both (the idea being- if you sought medical care for one thing, you might do it again, and that would cost the insurance company profit*).

When you applied for health coverage through an employer, you had to disclose every medical problem you had ever had, including one-off problems like ear infections or broken bones. Anything could be grounds for not covering you at the outset. BUT if you didn't list a problem, and it was discovered (and they really went hard to find things), that could be grounds for rescission- the process of kicking you off insurance and forcing you to pay back money that the insurance had previously paid out for you.

If you didn't have a job or made extremely- and I mean extremely- little money, you might qualify for the state-sponsored medicaid, assuming you fell into a category that medicaid covered in your state. These categories included low-income children, some parents of children who lived at or below 64% of the federal poverty line (though in some states the parents had to have income as low as 15% of the FPL (less than $4,000/year for a family of 3)), older adults who had few assets or income, people on disability, and pregnant people up to 60 days post delivery. If you were a childless, able-bodied (at least in the eyes of the government) non-pregnant adult between 19-64, even if you made next to nothing? Pretty much forget about getting medicaid.

As far as I know, there were not a ton of changes made to medicare, the other major government insurance program for people over 65 years of age or who were severely disabled).

So what about individual plans? Well, first off, there was no marketplace (you couldn't compare plans from different companies) and no guaranteed coverage. Similar to plans through an employer, there was nothing protecting you from rescission or denial for even minor medical problems.

Most states, however, allowed something called "high risk pools" i.e. people who had pre-existing conditions and were looking for insurance could pay double what "healthy" people paid in premiums (often literally thousands of dollars per month) in order to have insurance. Even with these exorbitantly expensive plans, it would often be 12 months before they would start covering any pre-existing conditions. This meant that people had to pay their premiums and also out of pocket for their chronic care management for the first year of having insurance.

So what do you do if you're one of the near quarter of Americans who didn't have insurance through their employer, didn't qualify for medicaid, and couldn't afford the private insurance market?

You went into debt, or you died.

No, like, literally. You either agreed to medical care costing 10's or even 100's of thousands of dollars, or you didn't. For yourself or for your kids. Think about that- Would you pay (read, put yourself or your family into debt) half a million dollars for a surgery that saved your life? Your kid's life? These were the kinds of decisions that had to be made.

Back to your question:

Should you try to get un-diagnosed? Well no. That's asking for a rescission if the ACA is overturned. Contact me directly if you want more personal info about planning.

*and it's not like they aren't making a 10s-of-billions profit even with the ACA protections

[finder-of-rings]

Are you autistic? Are you an autistic artist? Are you autistic and a person of color? Are you an autistic person who feels that your story has been untold in common narratives of autism? Are you creative?

If yes, we want YOU! Specifically, I want to invite you to contribute to this show I'm a part of called the autistic monologues! We are seeking to tell as many aspects of the autistic experience as we can and there is simply only so much we can cover as a rather homogeneous group (mostly white, 19-22, queer, undiagnosed or late diagnosed, etc) from one small college. Please fill out this form if you have anything you'd like to submit! Videos and art we can project digitally and recordings of your writing are particularly welcome!

Even if you aren't eligible to submit, please reblog this and spread the word, maybe one of your followers is! If you have any questions please feel free to contact me or @southernwizards

[covid-safer-hotties]

Study puts understanding of long COVID and vaccination into question - Published Sept 4, 2024

This article highlights why I haven't been celebrating about recent findings that vaccination reduces long covid:

We still do not have a solid definition of what long covid is.

We still don't know how long it takes some people to develop long covid: Some people develop long covid symptoms months or even years after infection.

Many are undiagnosed with long covid because of a lack of understanding in the medical community.

The reduction stated in initial studies on vaccination and long covid cited about 30% reduction: That isn't enough for me to take off my mask.

Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly has been somewhat off his game in recent months, giving in to hope and showing signs of pandemic fatigue. His desire to be done with the pandemic may be tainting what he writes, in my opinion. As there is no cure for long covid (and we still don't know exactly what causes and perpetuates it), it seems silly to suggest that vaccination is a long covid silver bullet while cases continue to skyrocket worldwide.

I'm a non-medical observer, but I keep track of the latest studies and news, so I'm not totally uninformed, but take this blurb with a gain or two of salt. I could be wrong, but it doesn't look that way yet.

A new study from researchers at the Mayo Clinic suggests that being vaccinated against COVID-19 does little to prevent long COVID.

The findings contradict what has become conventional wisdom in the last 3 years—that vaccines offer a chance to significantly reduce the risk of long COVID, or new or persistent symptoms 3 months or more after infection, most likely by reducing the severity of infection.

Melanie Swift, MD, MPH, was the lead author of the study, which was published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. She said despite the current thinking that vaccines reduce the risk of developing long COVID, she wasn’t surprised she found no association.

"A lot of the early literature on long COVID was really defining long COVID through patient surveys," Swift told CIDRAP News. Swift’s study instead relied on participants having received a long COVID diagnosis from a physician after having a documented case of post-vaccination COVID-19 infection.

6.9% developed long COVID The study was based on the electronic records of 41,652 people aged 5 years or older with SARS-CoV-2–positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests between February 2021 and December 2022 and a diagnosis of long COVID 30 days to 6 months following infection.

The average age of patients was 41 years, 55.2% were female, and 90.7% were White. At the time of initial infection, 9,744 (23.4 %) were vaccinated with two doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, and 7,658 (18.4 %) had received more than two mRNA doses.

A total of 8.2% of patients required hospitalization for COVID-19, and most infections occurred during the Delta and Omicron eras (39.8% and 47.1%, respectively).

In total, 6.9% of patients were diagnosed as having long COVID, with no observed difference between unvaccinated patients, those vaccinated with two doses of an mRNA vaccine, and those with more than two doses.

Long COVID was associated with older age, female sex, and hospitalization for the initial infection. It was inversely associated with infection during the Omicron period, the authors wrote.

Swift said that vaccines still play a role in preventing long COVID. “If you don’t get COVID, you don’t get long COVID," she said. "It remains the most important medical tools in our arsenal by virtue of not getting COVID and severe COVID, but we can’t stop there and say ‘if you were vaccinated, you don’t have to worry about long COVID.’”

Confounding factors and health behaviors Clifford Rosen, MD, a senior scientist at the MaineHealth Institute for Research, has reviewed studies on long COVID and vaccines. He said the current study may be skewed because of its sample size.

"It’s a small cohort that is relatively homogeneous and likely has different healthcare behavior than other EHR [electronic health record] studies," Rosen said. Instead, he said long COVID studies done based on Veterans Affairs (VA) data offer a more heterogenous cohort.

Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, chief of research and development at the VA St Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, has been behind most VA studies on long COVID.

He just published a review of evidence showing that vaccination reduces the risk of long COVID. While the effect size varies by 15% to 70%, there is an estimated average reduction of 40% to 50%, almost universally.

He said he found Swift’s study surprising and said it likely suffers from one main confounding factor: The type of patient who seeks out a long-COVID diagnosis likely uses healthcare and is vaccinated.

Al-Aly said vaccination may help reduce some clusters of long-COVID symptoms better than others. Fore maple, his work has shown a "profound effect in pulmonary symptoms of COVID, and less on metabolic effects on long COVID.”

Though more research needs be done on long COVID and vaccination, Al-Aly remains confident that vaccines play an important role in reducing the risk of long COVID.

[fandomhype]

Plagiarism Somerton

I obviously didn't watch the new James Somerton apology video ON his channel because I did not want to give that man the views and you shouldn't either! It has been re-uploaded and summarised elsewhere so that he doesn't benefit if anyone wants to see it.

The original hbomberguy video was wild to me because of all the stealing, I found it highly entertaining, loved all the Memes and it honestly did my imposter syndrome wonders! but then I watched the Todd in the shadows video and it really upset me.

He didn't just steal from other LGBT creators he lied to his mostly young LGBT audiance who were looking to an elder gay for guidance and to learn about their history.

Todd's video starts with a clip of James lies being spread by another person on a podcast, there's clips of people discussing his made up gay nazi fanfic he has presented as hard facts. He actively harmed his own community for cash! There are young gay men bringing that subject up in conversation being laughed at for falling for it and that leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

Now I'm not a part of that community but a lot of people I love are so that angered me a lot.

...and then he comes back with another apology video, conveniently within the three months he would have had to post something on his channel to retain his monetisation status weirdly?! In which he blames both a head injury and his ADHD for his theft - at no point does he address the lying in either apology video or any of the apology posts he made that I could find.

I have combined ADHD, when I was first diagnosed the NHS referred to it as ADD with Hyperactivity element but everyone seems to have gone back to calling it ADHD and that is the term used most commonly online so that is what I refer to it is as.

I am medicated but there has been a world wide shortage of my medication and I was without it for some time over winter, which was HELL! I got nothing done.

I am in no way a big creator, Youtube for me is a fun wee hobby that will hopefully grow and allow me to collaborate with other people with similar interests but ADHD is for sure a large part of my journey as a creator.

I've published like 7 videos and currently have around 10 being worked on because, you know... ADHD! *siren noises*

I know that I am forgetful sometimes, just for the record I also had several head injuries and concussions as a child because Lil undiagnosed at the time me truly had no fear of climbing or other dangerous activities so I have my script (because free talking a subject with this brain would be nearly impossible) open in one google doc and my research open in another. It's not hard.

That's the way it was at school, college and Uni too. James claims he went to Uni to do business. Every university uses anti-plagerism software for essays and has done since like the mid 2000's? so he knows not to copy pasta. He's straight up lying there.

Another thing he's lying about is his ADHD making him forget he copied things. Now if you tell me a joke that I like it'll stick in my head and I will straight up tell it as my own later, I've been called out for this many times! But entire articles? whole sections of other peoples videos? (he also flipped a fan Vid he had ripped off of another YouTube to avoid detection and tried to pass it off as his own) No that's not something you can accidentally do even with a swiss cheese brain like mine.

Weirdly all the the paragraphs James claims he accidentally copied were also edited to remove aspects of the Trans, Bi and Ace experiences that James markedly does not believe exist. Strange considering he accidentally copied them and assumed they were his own words? Imagine going back through a paragraph you think you wrote yesterday in the edit the next day and finding swarths of things you don't agree with there?!

Why am I telling you all this? Well because I wanted to put my two cents in as a creator with this condition, partly because I felt it was somewhat of an attack on us!? He's put it out there that ADHD creators are liable to steal from others and that's not ok by me. Also I just really like the sound of my own typing!

TL;DR : James Sommerton is a suck ass liar and he doesn't get to use his disability as an excuse for what he did! and...

****** ADHD DOES NOT MAKE YOU STEAL SHIT!!! ******

Also watch Todd's Vid, everyone saw the Hbomberguy one but this one goes deeper:

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! When you decided to go for an adhd diagnosis, is there a reason you went to the type of place you chose? I know you ended up having a difficult time with them after your evaluation. Did you go to your pcp first or try any other routes?

I’m starting to feel very heavily impacted by what I’m fairly certain is undiagnosed adhd, and I really want to try medication to see if it helps, but as I’m sure you’re aware, the process of making appointments is very difficult for one with undiagnosed adhd. Sigh. I’m wondering if it’s worth it to try and just make an appointment with my regular doctor to see if that gets me anywhere. But I know that doctors tend to be very cautious when prescribing, and I don’t want to bother with completely pointless appointments.

I just feel so overwhelmed when I think about trying anything else.

Yeah, I started working on getting evaluated in 2019 and only managed it in 2022, so I'm familiar with The Delay :D It never occurred to me to go through my primary care doctor -- I haven't had one for most of my adult life, because my insurance doesn't require it in order to see my specialist, and I just use a clinic if I'm sick. If you have a PCP you trust that's probably your best bet. You don't need to talk to them about prescribing, even, just talk about "I wonder if you have a recommendation for where I might get evaluated." You might even be able to get a recommendation without making a formal appointment. But if you get pushback on getting evaluated, then you can venture out on your own (more on this below).

I had a recommendation for a testing site, and I called a handful of times in 2019, but they never called back -- the desk person would say "Leave a message for our scheduler" and I'd say "Is there any way I can talk to a person? I keep leaving messages that don't get returned" and they'd say "Oh, they'll definitely return it this time" and that never happened. So by about mid-2019 I gave up and said I'd deal with it later. I started to research it in 2020, but then there was a global pandemic and I didn't want to be spending hours on end in a small room in a medical center.

And honestly, whenever I spoke about it to someone who wasn't a peer -- a parent, a doctor, etc -- I'd get a skeptical look and the response, "But you're so put-together and you're successful. Why would you think you have ADHD?" And I internalized that a little, to the point where I thought, yeah, I'm coping fine, it's not like anything would change other than maybe medication, why bother? Which...

That worked until it didn't, sometime in late 2021.

It worked until I looked at my life, which was not falling apart, and could see it fraying, and that if it did fall apart, it would be catastrophic. So my resolution for 2022 was to get evaluated. If it was ADHD, to get medicated; if it wasn't ADHD, to get help because clearly my life was not going as well as it looked.

So I just...sat down with an empty spreadsheet and I started googling "adult adhd evaluation chicago" (If you're not in a major city, I'd google your state or major cities nearby instead). Every site I found, I recorded the URL, my thoughts on the site, and their process for making an appointment. Once I had a list of places, I started "cold-calling" -- mostly via email, just reaching out to each place and recording the date and how I contacted them. When they answered, I recorded the date they replied and whether I responded.

The place I ended up going wasn't the first to call me back but they WERE the most responsive, and the first to schedule me for the evaluation (I did save the spreadsheet in case that fell through). They did a good job, more or less; I had struggles with them, but those were more to do with the fact that the woman who evaluated me already had one foot out the door and left my eval unwritten, meaning someone else had to take up the slack, which took time. And it at least helped to be able to say to my prescribing psych, during our first meeting, "Look, I have a diagnosis but I'm struggling to get the paperwork from them, and I'm really hanging on by a fingernail here." He gave me a much-abbreviated evaluation (basically a 20-minute questionnaire) and was able to prescribe for me that day.

So your other option is to just...find a psychiatrist who specializes in adult ADHD and/or ADHD medication management, make an appointment, and say, "I don't think I have it in me to set up a longform evaluation for this. I'm wondering if you can help me get evaluated and get some help." One of my goals was to get medicated but your overall goal is not medication -- the goal is help, and that just often happens to be medication. This isn't like, a trick to get a prescription or to manage a suspicious doctor (those have their place, believe me I know) -- your goal in getting treatment should always be to improve your life. But it's okay to want medication, you just have to want it in terms of improving quality of life, not medication qua medication.

So on the one hand, you sound like you need help, and you should work towards getting it -- but on the other, bear in mind that this sometimes just takes the time it takes, and keep your eyes on the goal. If you can be doing something, do it, and if you can't, then don't feel guilty that you can't.

Good luck :)

[serendertothesquad]

The Ultimate Serendipity-Odd Squad Lore Post

Because you people keep asking for my entire story.

No, no, not my life story. Christ sakes, we'd be here until Gen Z'ers died off if I had to reiterate my whole life story.

No, I'm talking about my entire Odd Squad story. You know, how I got here to begin with, how I rose to fame, and how I am objectively still a god without a religion, a cult, or a religious cult. That story. You all want to hear that story.

If you're an oldie, you've probably already heard my tale at least once. If you're new here to the funny kids STEM show fandom, then damn boy howdy are you in for a wild ride.

Get a snack and a drink, pop below the break, and let's begin.

Allow me to take you back to the year 2014. I was the ripe young age of 15, finishing up my sophomore year of high school, and suffering from undiagnosed depression of the "I'm trapped in my own home" variety. We didn't have cable, and so stuff like PBS Kids, NBC Kids, and 4Kids were the only things I watched on a regular basis. In the online space, I was largely chronline to the tenth degree (and note the "largely", because, y'know...school). The Internet, and spaces like Tumblr, served as escapism, and I spent a lot of time particularly in the Wild Kratts side of things.

I had first heard of Odd Squad through PBS's own upfront, the PBS Annual Meeting, that was held in May (though the show was, as I would find out much later, officially announced back in January at that year's TCA Winter Press Tour). It was the network's first live-action show since The Electric Company reboot in 2009 that got swiftly cancelled, which was already enough to get me interested because PBS hadn't taken a chance on live-action stuff since. The premise, as well, was charming and incredibly interesting -- a secret organization that solves problems using math sounded a little saccharine and thus perfect for PBS Kids, but since it was live-action, I figured it could bring a little spice to the network in a way that not other kids shows of the modern network era (read: 2013 onwards, past the network redesign) did. The fact that PBS was willing to go all-in on the show, up to teasers, previews, even having two new games available for fans to play before its premiere, was practically the cherry on top.

Fast-forward to around September. By this point, teasers and promos were already coming out for the show that showcased Olive, Otto, Oprah and Oscar in action. And by this point, I was absolutely invested. On a whim, I decided to take my Sony camera and record a reaction video of me watching it. Was it weird? Yes, but I had no money for a laptop that wasn't a decade old and didn't run about as well as a computer from the days of yore. You make do with what you have.

Needless to say, when the first episode "Zero Effect" premiered, I was having a whale of a time. That's...pretty much all I remember. Aside from the swearing. Lots and lots of swearing.

(...Look, it was 10 years ago. My brain can only go on a decline after being fully developed. And the depression has been eating away at me for that long. When astrophysicists perfect the art of the time machine, call me.)

I uploaded it to my YouTube channel the day after the show premiered. No editing, just a straight-cut video of my reactions laid on the table. I figured, "Okay, so this would be nice to look back on and laugh, maybe."

And then, a month later, I got a PM from Joshua Kilimnik, the actor who plays Season 1's big bad Odd Todd.

Before I get into that, though, a bit of backstory for my channel is necessary.

I had made my channel in 2011, when Wild Kratts premiered. At the time, it was mostly hosting Wild Kratts content, mainly Top 10 countdowns of fan videos I stumbled across on Tumblr or elsewhere as well as Sparta Remix-related stuff. (Yeah, remember that old meme? That isn't as dead as you think it is? Yeeeeeeah.) Around the middle of 2015, it unfortunately got struck down pretty hard when PBS began to go Nintendo on it, viewed fanworks as threats to their IPs, and decided to rip down my videos from the 'Net in three easy strikes -- and with it, my entire channel. It stung, to see my relatively hard work go down the drain. I'd be lying if I said I had wanted the channel to stay up just so I can look back on it in 5 years and cringe at how juvenile it was. Christ sakes, I even had MLP stuff up there at one point. Why? Don't ask me. I wasn't even watching the show at the time. I truly got into it when Season 5 began airing.

But back to the PM. You know, back when YouTube gave you the option to PM people.

Getting the PM from Joshua, I was, naturally, suspect. Celebrity impersonators are all too common, and as I would later come to find out, Odd Squad was not exempt. I had to laugh, because an autistic nobody like me getting a PM from a child actor who was in the industry long before Odd Squad was like Ariana Grande up and inviting me to have dinner with her because I made a few comments about her diction. It's a miracle, people. Miracles that only happen to those with life-threatening illnesses or those who have done good for the community. I had neither of those. Unless you count me going to high school as doing the community a service, in which case I have one of those things.

I read the PM again. And again. And again. And something in me thought, "Maybe...just maybe...this guy is actually legitimate. Maybe he's telling the truth about the entire Season 1 cast and the show's crew members, creators included, seeing my video. I mean it's 2014, what creator wouldn't look to the Internet for first reactions on their show?"

Fuck it. iBalled. I went for it. I reached out to Joshua.

And by God's oddness-laden utopia, am I so happy I did.

We immediately hit it off, taking our conversation from YouTube DMs to Twitter DMs (no, my current Twitter is not that ancient -- my time on birdsite-now-saltyman-hellhole is a whole different story) and discussing our hobbies and what we did. Joshua confided in me that he helped disabled kids, which, honestly, is a green flag in my book off the bat as someone who is, in fact, disabled. I told him about my animal shelter work and how I loved the show.

At the same time, I had posted on Tumblr about the show. Don't ask me what the post was about -- I honestly couldn't tell you, and combing through the tag is something I'd need a hell of a lot of motivation for -- but it somehow, by some astronomical means, took off. People came in like a small trickle. It was small, but over time, we built a strong community. I didn't exactly know how big my impact on people was until I read "how I got into Odd Squad" stories and saw my name pop up enough times to the point where I could safely say I was an inspiration to more than one person.

At some point in 2015, I had created a Wiki for the show. Fandom -- or Wikia, as it was called back then -- wasn't exactly new territory for me, as I had visited other show Wikis before. However, my Odd Squad Wiki didn't take off, and someone else ended up making another one that became far more successful.

...Yeah, you're surprised, aren't you? Figures. But not even I can lay claim to everything.

When the other Wiki took off, Joshua decided to dive right into the fire and engage with the fandom directly. Now, for any big-name fandom, this is everyday normalcy. The My Little Pony fandom has fans directly engage with cast and crew members who answer their questions, for example. But for small fandoms of niche IPs -- and oh believe you me, Odd Squad was incredibly niche back then -- a cast member interacting with fans was a huge deal. The hype only increased when Joshua was named an administrator, along with a few others, myself included.

Needless to say, Joshua being involved boosted the fandom's activity exponentially, and not just due to his spectacular acting on the show. Fanfics, fanart, fan videos...it was a bustling time of fan content. I can recall some of the most notable works just off the top of my head. The fandom got to be so busy that I made a news blog just to cover every bit of news, shifting away from my Wild Kratts news coverage to focus on a different show instead. I enlisted a few old friends to help me out, converted them to be oddballs (which, I will say, was a stroke of luck), and put them on the "staff team". My aim was to create something akin to Equestria Daily, but on a smaller scale. We did editorials, episode followups, and scoured the Internet for any and every bit of Odd Squad news we could find. It became a reliable source for many, especially considering PBS's horrible track record with even the most basic of news -- cancellations, renewals, and other such announcements. Not to brag, but I like to think I did a better job than them at actually giving news to fans who deserve it. (Hell, I still do. My hunger for even small crumbs of news is very strong indeed.)

I can easily recall when Season 2 was announced. Me and my friends were ecstatic. For me, I never thought Odd Squad would get a Season 2, and the Season 1 finale -- affectionately named OINFO (don't confuse it with "O is Not For Old", that's a different rodeo; this is "O is Not For Over") -- made sure of that. Originally, it was set to air in May, before it got shifted to June to coincide with Season 2's premiere.

And even long before that, the movie being announced blew our minds. I genuinely couldn't believe this niche little IP, birthed only several months ago, was getting a movie. And not even one of those specials that PBS markets as a movie as a ratings stunt. No, no, this was a full-blown theatrical movie. With A-listers to boot! And it was a damn good movie!

(...Okay, unrelated, but man, I'm reading through all my old posts and comments on the Wiki and cringing. God, did I really type like a 10-year-old back then when I was in high school? Egh gross cringe. The "let her say fuck" was strong with me back then.)

Of course, as most actors do, Joshua largely moved on from the show as the years went on. Most long-timer fans stuck around until the end of Season 2 before either other interests caught their eye or real life just got in the way too much. A majority of these fans dropped off the face of the Earth like an introvert who suddenly disappears mid-conversation, though they still popped into the Discord server a few times and I reconnected with one or two on Twitter. Hell, some of them even made a "hey, I'm back, and here's what's up" post on Fandom that made me ask if their accounts got hacked.

As a result, when Season 3 premiered, the fandom had slowed down to a crawl. Anyone who's bore witness to it, whether an episode or a nugget of criticism, can probably guess why. (And anyone who hasn't can feel the wrath of my "trust me bro" card, thank you.) It was like I willingly leapt off of the boat, it sped away without me, and I was trapped in the middle of fuck-all nowhere with sharks. So, you know, like Open Water if it was actually good. But the point stands in that I was pretty much all alone. I couldn't crawl to anyone for the sweet release of death after seeing just how hard S&P tried to avoid The Shadow's very obvious murder attempt by way of hacking into a car to make it fall into a lake of green goo. All I could do was scream and cry into a mic, edit, upload to YouTube, and let all the unsupervised kids looking for free episodes come to me in droves.

Oh, and post to Odd News. Until I accidentally deleted the account.

By that point in time, my old friends had all left due to real life commitments, and only one, Angelica, remained. But even she drifted away, and I was stuck running it all alone. So, I made the difficult decision to let it rot, and frankly...I haven't touched it since. Largely because I left Tumblr entirely and only just now came back. On the news front, I expanded my coverage to PBS Kids as a whole network, just as I do on Twitter.

It wasn't until the back half of Season 3 premiered that the fandom slowly but surely began to grow from planted roots, and I could connect with people again. Seeing people flood the Discord server and Tumblr, sharing art and news and theories, was amazing. Not for Season 3, though -- it was because of the past two seasons. Honestly, to say there's been more talk about Otis and Odd Todd than about any other character in the entire franchise is a hell of an understatement, because it dominated pretty much 98% of the fandom.

From there, new fanworks, fanart, and other pieces of fan-created media were created, and many still continue to be created to this day. Though hyperfixations can be yoted off the cliff and die in an instant (with deepest apologies to Shroom), it's great to see a burst of activity in such a small fandom. Hell, it even got big enough to where we had a Secret Valentine's exchange a couple months back, which was a real joy because it gave me a chance to flex my writing chops even if it did leave me on the verge of a third panic attack. And...the fandom being revived did land me a solid interview for a college assignment. Which, to me, is my own equivalent of getting a dedicated panel at a convention.

But this isn't a whole entire story about fandom lore. It's a story about me.

And honestly...I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little tired with Odd Squad myself.

Between the choking responsibilities of adult life (yay work), the state of my mental and physical health (yay depression and anxiety), and the franchise being fucked over sideways to Pluto and back by numerous entities (yay TV industry), I really can't just focus on Odd Squad anymore. Now, I'll give a fair warning to you and tell you to make no mistake -- my enjoyment of the franchise will die with me and my entire bloodline if the franchise itself doesn't die first. But I've found other special interests and hyperfixations that have grabbed me more than the funny kid agent franchise has. I derive more joy from binging the 90s Frasier series, Pretty Cure, and Neighborhood Wars than I do with the funny kid agent franchise.

Now, does this mean I'm leaving the fandom? God no. To do it on the verge of the franchise's 10th anniversary would be utter blasphemy. And I do plan on weaponizing this blog for more Seren's Studies, including episode reviews and character analyses I can't do with the limited resources I have. But the drive for Odd Squad is just...no longer there for me. I did not, unfortunately, get the "Odd Squad forever" autism. I got the "childhood is hell, but okay, sure, I'll make you a functioning competent adult to a certain degree" autism.

Maybe one of these days, amidst the countless new pieces of media that keep releasing, I'll be able to rewatch Odd Squad. It's worn out its welcome nostalgia-wise, but I find it to be a pretty enjoyable view when I take off those glasses and put on the "my God is an awesome God and that's why I try to attend church every Sunday" ones. I'm still making crossover fan projects to other IPs like MLP, Super Monkey Ball, and Precure. And of course, I'll be seated for Odd Squad UK to see if it's good or not -- I'm more than happy to take the bullet for people who don't want to see it for whatever reason, just as I did for the back half of Season 3. But for now, the drive is pretty much gone.

I will admit, I'm likely missing some stuff. My memory is absolutely terrible, and I had to go fishing for a lot of stuff to refresh it (one of the reasons why this took so long to release in the first place). But this is what I can dredge up.

I'm honestly proud of the little fandom I birthed. I could work a hundred jobs in my lifetime and still say that founding the Odd Squad fandom is by far my greatest accomplishment. I've met so many amazing people, seen so many amazing things, and really, I'm hoping to see more people in the years to come. If the aim is to introduce Odd Squad to new generations of kids, teens, young adults, and adults alike, then I'm all for it. Expose them to goodness. None of that Cocomelon shit.

Thank you for reading, and to all of the people in the fandom both old and new, thank you for touching my life in ways I never thought of. If you've got any further questions about my story, send 'em my way; I'll be glad to answer 'em.

See you all in the next Seren's Studies, whenever that may be.

[grievetherat]

I feel like rambling a bit about the Beatles; they have been my special interest for a while now but recently I've become especially hyperfixated.

I'm in college right now but my experience goes back to the 2010s when my father brought me trinkets from his trip to Liverpool some of which were Beatles-related. Living in a Eastern European country was a bit of a bleek experience as a child if you grew up being influenced by Western media. Being glued to the family computer or the TV, all I could do was admire the ways decade's leading up the the 21st century was shown in media, times which I was told were the darkest for my family (no electricity, no running water, the looming Soviet Union).

As such I was a yearning middle schooler, jealous of the Western world and their ability to create media that I admired. Don't get me wrong, I have gone back since then to realize even my home country had its charms and memorable breakthroughs in our culture of music or style but for me, as a kid being infatuated with the West, I was jealous of people who had their parents pass down cool records to them because they lived through the times when such music was popular, have access to merchandise or memorabilia, or the ability to visit certain historical places because I was worlds away from them.

As such I became fixated much of my teenagehood on the prospect of "what it could have been" for me, If I had the chance, I was basically a westernboo, I was chronically online most of the 2010s, exploring the emerging internet culture, the online sphere, youtube (because who else would have been the perfect subject to develop a parasocial relationship with British vloggers ahem dan&phil), but I also began to develop taste in music. As such it coincided with my father's visit to Liverpool, which fascinated me, the trinkets he had brought back along with the LOVE album CD, were mesmerizing. I mean I enjoyed my fair share of 2010s pop music, but by the end of that CD listen, needless to say, I became a pretentious prick.

To say I was interested in them is an understatement, I was obsessed; but I couldn't really explore my Beatles obsession with anyone my age so I paraded my hyperfixation to my father (a beatles fan, who took pride in me developing this interest) and the adults in my family, as simply an infatuation with the decades (the 60s-70s) to seem smart and sophisticated. They would praise me for being a history nerd and ask me to tell them fun facts about the Beatles which i pretended to simply comply with, but in reality, I just wanted an excuse to bring up the Beatles. Of course, those fun facts needed reading-up so i consumed as much reading material online (or from the few english history books my school library housed) as I could. I read of their contributions to music, their history, rock n roll, the pre-Beatles, post-breakup, their solo careers, the hippie counterculture everything ( i guess as much as a i could comprehend at them time lol) but most importantly, i read of John's tragic passing as well as the many articles, hypothesizing on 'what it could have been' for the Beatles.

My undiagnosed brain had melted at that one singular possibility.

Truly, in modern internet slang, the alleged/hypothesized Beatles reunion has been my Roman empire since the day I graduated middle school to today simply because I think of it every day at least twice. Eventually middle school obsession had matured into a primary interest, a personality trait, more of a "hello, I'm Nym, and I'm a big fan of the Beatles" and it would automatically tell the type of person I was. Only a few things after the Beatles had the same lasting effect on me (Gravity Falls as an example lol).

It also didn't help that I listen to them and their solo releases on the daily and that they're actually everywhere, being the greatest band in the world, but I think it's only in my tism brain that can't scratch that itch that makes my enjoyment of the Beatles such a surreal experience. Perhaps I could finally put it into words to give middle school me some sort of closure:

There has always been something so devastating to me about John's and George's passings. humans come and they go but for them it was abrupt, cruel; living in the 2020s now, there's something so poignant to me that begs the world why they never got to experience the next century to its full potential.

We knew the Beatles were over in 1980, the tale isn't as obscure as the Roman Empire because it feels like it has only just happened, it's part of modern popculture right? And yet we live in the 3rd decade of the 21st century, completely shifting the perspective to a type of lingering wound from such a long time ago that it never really heals anymore.

At the time, I had told this to my mother, how it bothered me so much. She had assumed I had realized the concept of sudden death and become afraid of it, and to her credit, she had tried her best to help me 'overcome it' as well, but it was never death that bothered me, it was the unfairness, the lack of closure and I guess the bittersweetness that lingers with me every time I turn on a Beatles song.

Being a Beatles fan has been a surreal experience really; I believed this weird, almost para-sociality with the closure that never came that I yearned for so long as a middle schooler would dissipate over time and I could enjoy the Beatles legacy as every other adult had around me, enjoy a fun fact now and then, get a trinket from a trip. I never really achieved that, I'm in college and they still essentially function for me as the fall of the Roman Empire. Especially with the release of Get Back a year or two ago and Now and Then, it's essentially gotten worse. Sometimes I can't bear to think about it anymore and sometimes I can't help but reminisce on what it could have been.

Anyways, I still treasure them in such a weird way, I think it takes a lot for a human tale with all its flaws to be this compellingly tragic and bittersweet to keep up a gen z college student at night over half a century later. Idk

[kaonarvna]

Going through so much right now. Barely have the capacity to do much of anything aside from work and take care of myself and my spouse.

Autistic burnout is truly a cruel mistress. As is having undiagnosed ADHD, knowing what your unmet needs are, and not having the means to access the support you require.

Big vent below. Workplace ableism. ADHD/AuDHD vent.

My spouse is quitting his job again. It happens every year. We've only just now realised "oh my god, it's the autism. It was always the autism" for why he keeps hopping.

He's leaving the current job because they're failing to give him what seems like the most basic accommodations (written instructions, scheduled meetings/literally any notice instead of impromptu "informal chats" in hallways with no record, basic empathy).

He's being told off for "speaking too loudly" and "speaking too enthusiastically" even though all he's talking about with his colleagues is work. They took away his office to turn it into a meeting room, forced him into the communal office space, and have now told him to stop talking to himself or his colleagues.

It's heartbreaking. It's been slowly creeping in for months and it's taken too long for us to realise "oh my god, you need a diagnosis, this is just fucking discrimination, you need formal accommodations and support".

So he's off on the sick now because his stress has become so severe that he just can't function. Before he got the sick note he'd come home and crash every day, and dreaded going to work. He role-played being a warhammer 40k servitor (lobotomised and obedient worker drone, basically) to help him get through the day of staying quiet and doing nothing but work. He'd come home and need so much sensory input and support. And he slept so much, and so poorly. He started to "fail the speech checks" (massively miss social cues and say the wrong thing) with colleagues at work, and came home embarrassed in ways he never was before. He's a very very social animal, and didn't think he had social difficulties, but now he's so worn down that he's realised he does.

He can't mask anymore. He's so tired.

And now that he got that sick note, and plans to leave, he's not dreading waking up each day nearly as much. He's still in the sensory sock every day, and he's still sad and overwhelmed, but he's feeling better.

We've started the process of getting him a diagnosis, but it's going to take months and months and months. We don't really have months. We're going to start applying for new jobs for him, and hopefully get him out of labs. You'd think a chemical laboratory would be the perfect place for an autistic man who loves STEM, but management has always made it unworkable for him. He's always slowly forced out.

And I can barely take care of him, between working full time and having EDS. And I've finally realised I desperately need that ADHD diagnosis, and I need meds. I haven't felt like a person in so long. I haven't felt like myself in years. I feel like this abstract creature inside this horrible prison, and the controls don't work anymore.

Every mental health professional I've seen has asked me, "Have you ever been assessed for ADHD? You've already adopted all the coping mechanisms and lifestyle changes I could recommend. I can't diagnose you, but yknow, think about it."

I've always suspected it. I know I'm autistic. All signs point to ADHD too.

I looked back on every stimulant I've put in my body, and realised that all of them made my brain emptier. They all gave me more control. I was always more able to make choices and act upon them. But I used to associate that with the pain relief (think kratom, nefopam, etc) not the stimulant.

So when I got my pain mostly under control, and I manage it now, I couldn't figure out why I still had so little control over myself.

It's the fucking ADHD.

How much time have I lost to being undiagnosed and unmedicated? How much of my life has slipped down the drain while I paced back and forth, or laid in place "stuck", or ping ponged from incomplete task to incomplete task until I crashed? How much more pleasure could I have experienced if my brain wasn't full of constant noise and thirty different versions of the same thought?

How much have I hurt myself by going "you're fine, you don't need meds" for so many years?

I don't know how long it's going to take to get diagnosed. I've started the process and now we just...wait. But all the evidence points to "yes", and that "meds will probably work and make a massive difference for your quality of life". I might get to be a person someday, or at least a more fulfilled creature.

[scarabsinthestardust]

Tender // Ch. 5

MASTERLIST

word count: 3200+

I'm so sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out, friends. I came back from vacation sick and had a lot of catching up to do. But here we are, and chapter 6 is already almost done, too. Things are getting intense, and I am again apologizing for what's to come.

CHAPTER WARNINGS: child abuse; religious violence; burns; depression; anxiety; paranoia; unspecified undiagnosed mental illness; language; alcoholism; intoxication; jealousy; suicidal ideations; drunk driving; verbal argument; physical violence; domestic abuse; blood; mentions of hospitals, stitches, shots, and medication; manipulation; toxic behavior; stalking behavior (if I missed anything, let me know)

There was no rhyme or reason for what they’d done to him. They could probably justify their actions in their own deluded minds, but to anyone on the outside, it was barbaric and cruel. When the boy asked why, his voice raw from screaming, they only told him it was God’s will, whatever that meant.

The boy is 13 now. He’d read the Bible, and he didn’t recall anything about this. Of course, he fought against the pain. Who could be expected to sit quietly and obediently when there is red hot metal being pushed against their flesh? His mother chose the spot of a small birthmark above his right hip. The offending spot, a mark of the Devil, needed to be cleansed. The pain would eventually fade, a jagged scar in its place, but you don’t ever forget the smell of burning flesh, especially your own.

~

I was 16 when I left that place. I had nowhere to go and no plan, but I’m smart enough to know how to survive. I managed to save up whatever money I could scrape up and worked as hard as I could until I was able to land steadily on my own feet. I pulled myself up from the ground and rarely asked anyone for help. I refused to rely on anyone. People can’t be trusted, and I’m the perfect example.

I thought that being with Josh would be the remedy I needed to fix myself, that he would be the one to pull me out of the water and back onto solid ground. But I never should have put that on him. It was never his responsibility, but now I’m finding that it’s easier to blame him for my slip-ups than admitting that I have a problem.

The band isn’t due to go back on tour for quite some time, but they’re in the process of writing and recording new music, which requires a lot of time spent at the studio. I know they’re working so hard, and I should be proud of him, but the longer this takes, the further he slips away. He spends all day with his brothers and returns home late and too exhausted to do much of anything other than sleep.

I can tell our last fight (if I can really call it that) still weighs heavily on him. He doesn’t talk as much, which I thought would be relieving, but instead it only makes him seem more distant, and it hurts. He doesn’t ask me many questions anymore, and he’s hesitant to try and make plans. I curse myself for creating that dark cloud of unsurety that hovers over him.

I fell off the wagon in Wichita, and I haven’t gotten back on it. Some days are more difficult than others. Josh tries to keep me afloat as best he can. He’s done what he can to keep me away from any alcohol, and he’s even dropped me off at a couple of AA meetings to make sure I go. But it’s not like there’s a step-by-step manual on how to make sure your boyfriend doesn’t decide to be a piece of shit today.

I’m assigned to a job that’s supposed to keep me out of town for a few days, but some changes in plans have me returning home a day early. I try to call Josh on my way back, but I only get his voicemail. He doesn’t call me back, but eventually sends a text. “Sorry I missed your call. I’m out with the guys, so I’ll be out late. I’ll see you when I get home.” The little heart emoji at the end makes me scoff. ‘Out with the guys.’ He’s at the bar with his brothers, and there’s no telling what he’s getting up to.

I don’t know why I’m finding it so hard to trust him these days. I want to believe that he wouldn’t lie to me, wouldn’t allow himself to be whisked away by some other man, but then I remember that I’m beneath him, and he’s weak. I imagine it wouldn’t take much, that he’d give in to the first handsome man that spares him a sultry glance.

I don’t go home, and I don’t go to his house. Not yet. I’m tired from the drive and my mind is muddled with made-up scenarios that send me into a spiral. I wonder if I can will some kind of tragedy into existence, something to take me out of my misery – a car accident, a gunshot from a robbery gone bad, anything. It would be so easy to lie down on the nearest train tracks and wait it out or take a flying leap off of the top floor of a parking garage, but in the end, I’m too much of a coward to do it myself.

I don’t hesitate to go inside the store and buy the liquor. I park in an empty lot; the fact that it’s in walking distance of Josh’s favorite bar may or may not have been intentional. I don’t have any second thoughts before I crack open the first bottle.

The more I drink, the more my fear and sorrow turn to hate. I’m angry. I’m angry with myself for not having the strength to control my urges. I’m angry with Josh… for what? For having a social life? For wanting to spend time with his brothers at a place I can’t go? That’s stupid. He’s not a child. But I need him more than I’ve ever needed anyone. We’ve been apart so much recently. Maybe he just needs a reminder of who I belong to, who he belongs to.

I can’t find my keys; I probably dropped them between the seats. It’s for the best, really. The liquor has fogged my brain and made me clumsy, but at least I can stay upright. I barely stumble down the sidewalk until I reach my destination. The doorman eyes me warily, but one of the benefits of being a raging alcoholic is you get better at hiding it.

It doesn’t take me long to spot Jake, Sam, and Danny at a table inside. But where’s Josh? I scan the dimly lit room until I find him. He’s leaning up against the bar talking to someone I don’t recognize. He laughs at whatever the man says to him, his cheek red – from alcohol or is he blushing? The man leans in, too close for my comfort, and touches Josh’s shoulder. Heat rises up in me and my skin is tingling. My vision tunnels until Josh is the only thing I can see.

I rush towards him, miraculously without bumping into too many innocent bystanders, and force myself between him and the unsuspecting stranger. The man takes a step back and shoots Josh a concerned look.

“Finn, what the hell are you doing here?” His eyes are wide and panicked, like he just got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

“You first,” I spit, my tone venomous.

“What are you even… shit, you’re drunk.” He lets out a frustrated sigh. “Jesus Christ, c’mon.”

I glare at the stranger once more before Josh drags me outside. Jake seems to have noticed and is hot on our tails. “Josh, you okay?” Jake doesn’t trust me, and he doesn’t make any attempt to hide it. He hasn’t been fond of me since day one. His presence and desire to be in Josh’s business fuels the fire, and I’m about to start in on him, but Josh is here to play peacekeeper.

“We’re good. Can you just, uh, give us a minute?”

I know the last thing Jake wants to do is leave his twin out here alone with me. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t feel safe with me either. But at Josh’s pleading eyes, he relents, reluctantly retreating inside.

Josh turns to me, chewing on his bottom lip. Much like someone trying to calm a frightened animal, he approaches me slowly and carefully, his voice low. “Finn, baby, let me take you home.”

“Why, so you can come back here to that asshole?”

“What? Who are you talking about?”

“You know who I’m fuckin’ talking about. Were you gonna take him home? Were you gonna fuck him?” His feigned cluelessness is just fanning the flames. “Would he have been in your bed tonight if I didn’t come back early?”

“No, I wasn’t… the guy I was talking to in there? He’s just a friend, Finn. I wouldn’t-“

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” I close the distance between us. I’m so close and so much taller than him that he cranes his neck to maintain eye contact. He’s annoyed, tiptoeing into angry. He’s upset that I’m making these accusations. He pities me for being broken. But he isn’t afraid, and he very much should be.

The thing about alcoholism, in most cases, is that it brings out the worst in people. They do things they would never do sober. They hurt people in ways they would never think to do if they weren’t under the influence. They lose all sense of impulse control. The only thing that matters is what they’re feeling in those moments, the urges to act out on whatever terrible thoughts they’re having at the time. For me, it’s like I’m watching it happen to someone else. My self-awareness is clouded and I feel almost as if I’m just an observer, watching someone that looks oddly similar to me make the biggest mistakes of his life.

I expect a fiery argument from him, but if he’s mad, he pushes it down. “You don’t mean that. You’re drunk. You wouldn’t be saying these things if you weren’t.” He’s trying to diffuse a bomb and he’s about to cut the wrong wire. “Please, baby, let’s go home. You can sleep it off and we can talk in the morning.” His hands move to my face, and he looks up at me tearfully.

He thinks he can calm me down with his sweetness, sprinkle me with soft gestures to quell my anger. But it’s a façade. I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to manipulate it, to make me think I’m delusional, that I imagined everything. He’ll blame it on the alcohol in me instead of just admitting that he was the one acting like a whore.

I wrench away from his hands and my own come up. They meet his chest, and I shove him away so violently that he slams into the brick wall behind him with an audible thud. I hear him cry out, but it doesn’t register in my mind what I’ve done until I see blood. Blood? Wait, why is there blood?

“Josh, fuck, are you okay?” I try to go to him, but he sidesteps me.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” He’s got his hand pressed tightly on the back of his upper left arm. There’s blood seeping between his fingers and down his arm, staining his clothes. I notice something I didn’t see at first – a small piece of metal rebar that’s sticking out from the wall and is now coated in Josh’s blood.

“Baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” The remorse I’m feeling isn’t false, and I don’t have to force the tears that are threatening to spill from my eyes. What have I done? I never meant for this to happen, for him to get hurt like this. “Please, let me see it. Let me help.” I try to go to him again, but he doesn’t want me near him.

“Get the fuck away from me!” His words sting, and the look in his eyes tells me he means it.

I’m frozen as I try to figure out what to do, and I watch him try to control the bleeding on his own. He can’t really see the wound, but he knows it’s bad. “Josh, you need to go to the hospital,” I say, keeping my voice down.

“No fucking shit, Sherlock.” He looks toward the entrance to the bar, probably considering going in to get Jake. But he glances back at me and something flashes across his face that I can’t explain. Worry? He starts to speak again but decides against it, before walking in the opposite direction. He’s not really going to drive himself there? I offer to take him but he shuts me down. “Like I would let you drive me anywhere right now. Actually,” he starts, turning to me. “Give me your keys.”

I shrug. “I don’t know where they are.” Is he asking because he’s actually still concerned about me, or because he’s trying to prevent me from driving off and fucking up someone else’s life?

He huffs. “Whatever. Go home,” he orders. He’s livid, and rightly so, but there’s something else painted across his face – pain, betrayal, and sadness.

I think I’m going to vomit. My legs are numb; I’m unable to move them and I can do nothing as he walks away from me.

~

I should have left. I shouldn’t have found my keys and gotten back behind the wheel. I shouldn’t have driven to Josh’s house, still drunk. I shouldn’t have let myself in with the spare hidden key. I shouldn’t have decided to wait for him, to try to salvage what’s left of a relationship I know is already in tatters.

It’s probably three or four hours before I hear the lock click on the front door. I watch him as he enters and shuts the door behind him. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me, but he makes no move to come any closer.

“I told you to go home.” He won’t meet my eyes and he looks so drained of energy. His left arm is wrapped up with white bandages, midway between his elbow and shoulder. He’s got a bag in his hand that looks like prescription medication and his bloodstained jacket draped over his arm.

“You are my home.” It’s the first thing that comes to mind and it’s pathetic, but it’s the truth. At least, it feels like it. “Are you okay?”

He scoffs. “I have five stitches and had to get a tetanus shot.” He holds the medicine bag up. “And antibiotics for ten days so it doesn’t get infected.”

“Josh, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to… for you to get hurt.”

He tosses the medicine on the coffee table and sighs as he drops onto the couch. He sits as far from me as he can. “Finn… I want to help you, but if… if it’s gonna be like this… I don’t know if I want you here with me right now.”

“It’s not, I promise. I just got carried away. I wasn’t thinking. You know I would never hurt you on purpose. I’ll be more careful. It won’t happen again.”

His jaw tenses and I can see he’s thinking about what to say, what kind of decision he’s going to make. He’s dejected, like he doesn’t have any fight left in him. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. But he doesn’t trust me. And if he doesn’t trust me, he won’t forgive me. Time to pull out all the stops.

I’m not faking it, not really. I do feel remorseful for what I did, and I’ll admit that I’m the one that messed up. Alcohol makes me paranoid, and now that I’m sobering up, I realize that Josh didn’t do anything wrong. It isn’t his fault that he’s too weak to tell people no. If anything, I should have taken it out on the asshole that had the audacity to touch him. But I am ashamed of how I acted, and I need to make him understand that. And if that requires me to beg, I’ll do it.

I give in and let the tears flow freely; it helps feed the pity I’m trying to draw from him. I know I’m just being selfish. I’m doing this for me, despite knowing this is not what he really needs. What he should do is put as much distance as he can between us. I’m not confident that I can keep him safe. But I’ve already started the game, and I have to finish it.

When I grab his hand, he makes a small effort to pull away, but I tighten my grip. Don’t let go. “Baby, please don’t push me away. I made a mistake, but you’re the one who said it was okay to make mistakes, right? I’m trying, Josh, I really am. I’m trying to be better, but I can’t do it alone. I need you.” That’s it. That’s the icing on the cake. That’s how I get to him. Josh is a lover, it’s in his blood. He loves being needed, getting the opportunity to help people, and he won’t say no. “If you shut me out now… I don’t have anyone else. You’re it for me. I can’t do this without you.”

He's fighting with himself, I can see it in his eyes, but I can also see that I’ve won. He still loves me, and he won’t just walk away from that. Even better, if he thinks he can fix me, he’s going to try, even if he takes all the damage in the process.

“What do you need me to do?”

I don’t have a real answer for him. He knows I won’t go to rehab – it’s too similar to a hospital. The AA meetings only do so much. Plus, I’m getting to the point where it annoys me, sitting there listening to all those idiots and their fucking sob stories. I don’t give a shit about them. I never did. Then they start bringing ‘God’ and ‘faith’ into it, and I realize they’re all just sheep, blindly following a fictional idea of God – or maybe just a god that doesn’t care about them either.

Josh’s big brown eyes are watching me closely, maybe trying to decide if he’s the one making the mistake. I certainly won’t be the one to tell him he definitely is.

I beg for him to just let me stay with him, and he concedes. I try to be gentle with him; I don’t think he can handle anymore heaviness tonight. I make him eat so he can start his antibiotics, and I’m extra careful of his arm as we lie down. Again, I don’t really sleep, but he crashes hard, the day finally catching up to him. And I do something that I know is another mistake, something that is guaranteed to cause problems later, but I justify it as my way of protecting him.

When I’m sure he’s fast asleep, I unlock his phone, download one of the many tracking apps that are freely available, and link it to my phone. I disable all notifications and hide the icon in some folder I know he never uses, one of those where you keep all the software apps you can’t delete.

There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s wrong. It’s disrespectful, a violation of privacy, an act that solidifies how much I don’t trust him. It’s controlling, manipulative, and just overall creepy. I would have been livid if he had done it to me. But the deed is done, and I’ll tell myself whatever I need to, to not feel guilty for this. I’m doing it for him. I’m doing it for his safety, to keep him out of trouble when I’m not here. He needs someone to do it, and who better than someone that loves him? He needs me, and I’d do anything for him.

///

TAGLIST (let me know if you want to be added!)

@hollyco @fleetingjake @musicislove3389 @hailthegodsong @josh-iamyour-mama @katuschka @lilbitx

[lynnsenpai]

2 silly questions

1. Since autism and general neurodivergence and being trans or generally being queer often appear in people at the same time do you think anyone in the rain or M. I. S cast is neurodivergent? If so who

And

2. More so a joke question but do you think raim would play yu-gi-oh? (Joke cos both rains text and the descriptions of normal Monsters in yu-gi-oh are in slanted italic.)

Funny story. I wrote Rain, the character, never really thinking of her as autistic. She was just meant to be kinda based on me. But towards the end of the comic's run, I learned that I was in fact autistic, myself. So albeit unintentional, a case could be made that Rain is also autistic. I did also write Chanel to be autistic. And funny enough, she is the other character I identify most with. The writing was really on the wall for me, but I failed to notice for so so SO long. XD In MIS, I'm on the record saying that Chiaki is intended to be have both autism and ADHD, but is undiagnosed (which, following up on the above paragraphs, comes from personal experience itself). Considering the time the story takes place, it wouldn't be uncommon for these to be overlooked. Sadly, this is the case especially for a girl. And the end result is that she is called "lazy" or told she "doesn't apply herself," instead of anyone, making an effort to understand why Chiaki behaves the way she does. (An all too common experience for us 90's kids.)

I'm not against the idea of Rain or any of the other characters being into Yu-Gi-Oh. I admit I'll probably never make any canon mention of the property, though. I've just never watched/played/read it, so I'd have no idea what I was talking about. XD