#I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself

[claypigeonpottery]

This might be odd to ask, but how do you get through the work of production pottery? I love pottery myself, but with the amount of energy that goes into each piece... it seems herculean to put in that much of yourself into work after work after work in a production format. How do you get your energy to carry you through a full session, and how do you avoid it leading to burnout?

I don’t really think of my pottery as production pottery, which I think is a part of it. I’m prolific, but it’s mostly because if I don’t do something creative every day or so, I turn into a disaster. I’ve learned to avoid art slumps so that doesn’t slow me down anymore. the only thing that really throws me off when I’m making is taking on too many commissions and overwhelming myself. I’m still trying to figure out a good balance there tbh 😑

when it comes to kiln time, it is 100% a huge energy drain. luckily, I always have help. I don’t think I’d be able to do it without support. @subpar-lemon-bar helps me with so much around kiln time: glazing, loading and unloading kilns, inputting all the shipping info, and helping me pack and label everything.

but even working together, we’re both often exhausted after kiln time. this entire week I’ve been struggling with being constantly overstimulated, and I had a few times where I just had to put my head on the table and cry a little lol

as for how to get through a session, I work at home, so I can stop or start at any time. if I start a thing and don’t have the energy, I can leave. sometimes I won’t even clean up, I’ll just cover my work, and be done. it’s much easier than taking classes, or working in the studio. I used to miss a lot of class sessions, because having the energy at the right time was hard—plus it also took social energy, which is so much harder for me. and I knew if I went when I wasn’t doing well, I wouldn’t enjoy it and it would end up being frustrating.

I’m not sure any of this is useful, since I know it’s not always possible to work at home or get someone to help you, but these are the things that make it possible for me.

[fruit-fairy2]

Whenever someone gives me food I always feel obligated to eat the entire thing in front of them so they know I appreciated it so if I were a tiny it’d only take one well-meaning human giving me an entire cookie and it’d be over for me

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

it’s not fair that so much of my memory and cognitive function is tied up in something I cannot control or reasonably prevent

[void-tiger]

…wHY do y’all feel the need to mention where someone’s at when they’re not around! Sure I have a crush on that idiot but I’m never going to admit to it, and actively avoid bringing them up myself ‘cause it’d feel like a freudian slip and it’s not my business anyway.

How often do I even come up in y’all’s home conversation. Is it out of pity? Or is this idiot just as insufferable as I am to my friends who are WELL AWAY from this and therefore Safe to repeatedly try spring-cleaning my demiromantic acengst with.

Are y’all pressuring them about me, too, or has that FINALLY, finally eased off.

(And what value can I possibly have, anyway. I’m unemployed and just shy of a shutin from severe anxiety/moderate depression and cptsd, adhd, and a smorgasbord of muscular-skeletal issues that just keep creeping up and staying and moving the goalpost to even TRY getting a job. The idiot has other friends when they have time to spend on them. All I am is stubborn enough to stick around and wait if I’m not actively being chased off IF the other party seems to really want that connection.)

[azurexsnake]

I think my biggest yuck point over people being anti-dark content is how often dark content is used as a coping mechanism. Or as a vehicle to share experiences you wouldn’t be able to otherwise put into plain words.

Bad shit happens. This world is not love and light all the time. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to interact with it. But you can’t deny its existence without also denying peoples’ hurt. It’s real, too. And if you haven’t hurt in a way that someone’s art makes sense to you, maybe you should be glad for that. Maybe you should wish that artist got what they needed to get from creating. Wish them peace, let them have their voice, and leave them alone.

[tautozhone]

idk how to start this so this post is ab individual action, trying to motivate positive change in the world, etc etc

a lot of growing up in the US for me makes things feel more scary than they are. like it’s actually not that difficult to go out of your way to get a bottle of water or iced cup of water from some random drive through if you think you should do it. either fast food conglomerate or local actually, it’ll usually be cheaper than 5 dollars to get drinkable water. i try to have 5-10 dollars i can justify spending on water, and asking for change, because sometimes when i’m out driving i need to go grab water.

i do not do this for me as much as i try to do it specifically when i see someone who’s most likely homeless on a street corner. i’m sure one day i might do this and they might not be there when i come back, but what have i lost really? a bit of time and a bit of money that would’ve meant more to them, that i can hold onto until i see them next.

the pressure that a lot of people feel when they think “what can i do” comes from this grand narrative that the average citizen can singlehandedly fix the housing crisis. rich people? maybe. nonprofits? not in a day, not all one person still. what can i do is a question i ask a lot. what can i do, not just because it feels bad to move along like nothings wrong with the world, but what can i do that will do anything. what can i do that makes even the smallest change.

i feel like it took me too long to figure out a personal method to what i consider individual action. it’s taking time to get to my own financial stability to be able to do more. but for now it’s as simple as water and cash. not water and food, but water and cash.

individual action means a lot in small steps, go get a bottle of water bare minimum and the price of a meal if you can and then just give it to them. if it wasn’t such a miserably hot place where i live i would keep a pack of water in my car, which i still want to do for the sake of having immediate access to water to give someone who might need it- hot or cold sometimes won’t matter. but when it’s hot out, get cold water, if it’s cold out, a warm tea will hydrate more than coffee will as long as it’s not super caffeinated.

[fingertipsmp3]

Being friends with me must be exhausting fr. Imagine waking up and seeing that your dumbest friend sent you a whole ass rant starting with “SOS” and the salient points are there’s a guy with swoopy hair at her work and she doesn’t know how to deal

[shivermewhiskerz]

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//Venting in Tags:: TW Sewerslide and shit like that

[jujuubee]

Sometimes I really do wonder if I’m going into the right field. Bc it’s like, I’m very desensitized to absolutely horrible things occurring bc of my job & having to study some of the worst crimes in history but then it’s like, I get to a case every now and then & mt stomach hurts so bad and I feel such grief over what happened. And I can’t get it out of my head for days. Some of the crime scene photos are still burned into my brain. And it’s just like, how much more desensitized do I need to be 😭 and is that even healthy? You need to have some capability of emotion to do this effectively but bro, emotions have to completely shut off after some point when all you are surrounded by on a daily basis is just the worst shit possible

[goldensunset]

i envy the people who have no shame self-reblogging their own art dozens of times every now and then. for me it’s like ok i get three shots at this and if still nobody cares about it after that i’m just gonna give up and save myself any further embarrassment

[redflannelsheets]

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[huntingingoodwill]

the only person who matches my freak as i touch my reflection and whisper “am i normal” into the big gym mirror is the guy in the corner who only does weights and makes strange grunting noises every time he moves

[positivelyqueer]

friend asked recently how I knew I was autistic (late self dx) and after a joking answer of ‘five autistic people told me unprompted in the span of about two weeks, I settled on: I don’t.

I don’t Know that I’m autistic. What I do know is that my life makes more sense, and is easier to navigate, when I view it through the lens of being autistic.

I learnt what masking was, and started to undo the damage of 20+ years of it. I let myself stim for the first time out of joy and it was incredible. I recognised it as a regulation skill and started using it for coping. I stopped being cruel to myself about making ‘weird’ noises, I let myself ask for tone clarification from friends. I stopped thinking I was being rude by mimicking others (echolalia). I started respecting my own communication needs and differences. I started being able to communicate these with friends and loved ones, and had the language to do so. I recognised my sensory needs and was better at reducing shutdowns and meltdowns (which is also been confused by and blamed myself for in the past). I also could better identify things that were genuinely impeding on my life and ways to work with myself around them. (Social situations are easier now that I know what information I need before hand, and can prepare. I know what the difficulty involved in switching tasks is and can work with myself on it.)

Mostly I stopped bullying myself the way I’d been bullied growing up for everything that has made me ‘weird’. I stopped policing everything I did the way my parents had in an effort to ‘help’ me blend in. (I don’t resent them for this- I understand that what they did to me is likely what was done to them and they didn’t (and don’t) recognise it.)

Not a weird or broken horse, but a regular zebra.

[samuraisharkie]

I’ve seen it coming years away, but it still always manages to make me bleed a little bit more when I am reminded I AM being left behind, watching everyone I know go on ahead of me because why the hell would they hold themselves back like that? I wouldn’t want them to, but it still hurts to be reminded that I’m still stuck here for the foreseeable future, that there will be no collaboration, it’s up to me and kitty and only us. I’m still in the same place I was when I graduated high school. I don’t see a way out yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough money on my own. It’s depressing being reminded of it all. I’m not ready and I should be. I’ve wasted so much time, how am I going to catch up and not feel decades behind my peers? I don’t hate myself or my body (I can’t afford to do that again) but a lot of times I wish there was something different about me that made it so I had the same ease/difficulty doing things that others did, that I could form habits like most people can, that I wasn’t so exhausted mentally and physically all the time. It’s mortifying to be left behind. I’m happy for them, and I hate that it’s soured by my own problems and tinged with selfish resentment that it’s just me and my twin against the world.

[flowachild]

I get in my feelings whenever I’m a week out from my period but my dad keeps insisting I drive here and I honestly should start trying because he did have a stroke so it’s not a far thought that one day he won’t be able to drive me around anymore but I also feel so sad to think he might be considering that he won’t be here one day

[thursdayg1rl]

trying not to cry on the train platform after missing my train and also just being informed by my uncle I’m basically going to be homeless next year