#can you see that i have executive dysfunction
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eimearkuopio · 2 days ago
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I'm in the UK, so YMMV, and I was diagnosed at age 33 in about 2018, so things may have changed BUT
To get a diagnosis of ADHD on the NHS, you first need to get a referral and you'll have to figure that stuff out for yourself.
I believe I was diagnosed based on DSM-V criteria but I'm recovering from a pretty severe mental break at the moment. Take everything I say with a pinch of salt, but this is stuff that I am a fairly well-informed lay person on.
There are 18 symptoms of ADHD; 9 inattentive, and 9 hyperactive-impulsive. To qualify for a diagnosis, you need to have a certain number from one or both categories to an extent that it significantly impacts on your day-to-day life. Not being capable of stopping procrastinating even when you want to is a pretty significant symptom of executive dysfunction.
I have all nine inattentive-type symptoms. I also have a PhD that I got by nearly killing myself doing a PhD with undiagnosed ADHD.
The hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are the ones that are easily visible from the outside. To get an ADHD diagnosis, the symptoms need to have been there since childhood, because it's a neurodevelopmental condition. But there's a lot of overlap with other conditions like C-PTSD or bipolar. Think of... The difference between being born with brittle bones and breaking bones easily and repeatedly in circumstances that wouldn't harm most people, versus having grown up in an abusive environment where an adult keeps breaking your bones, versus being in a whole bunch of car crashes where you kept breaking bones.
Your lack of executive function is a symptom that needs to be dealt with for you to be a healthy, happy person, and you might or might not have actual ADHD, but if you want to stop procrastinating and you can't do that, something is wrong. The reason I'm suggesting being assessed for ADHD is that if the reason behind your executive function issues is actually ADHD, it's going to be much easier to treat than the other shit. Not necessarily easy, mind you; but easier than the other options.
I will also say that I think in the next decade or so we're going to see a lot of C-PTSD diagnoses in the aftermath of COVID. So the most important thing is to be kind to yourself, because something is wrong and you don't know what yet. But it's not your fault, because you want to do better and you can't yet. So you need to talk to a professional who can help you figure out what's wrong before you end up in the place I was a month ago. Good luck. There is still hope, but there's more of it when you know your labels and you have the right meds. 💚💜🩷
So I’m a first year uni student. How did you survive your bachelors? It feels like such a long slog, and as I write this I have five things I need to do.
In particular, how did you… not procrastinate
I’d really appreciate any advice you can give!
One day at a time mate. One day at a time.
I can't give you any advice on procrastination, I procrastinated every project I had throughout all of uni.
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dogtoling · 5 hours ago
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General life- and blog update , since I assume at least a few people might have been wondering where I've been and what i've been up to recently. I obviously haven't been posting or drawing much this year in general. This will probably be an important post if you care about stuff on this blog, and I already rambled on Sheezy, but that site isn't very populated yet and it's also very good at hiding journals so let's just ramble again...
The summary of this post if you hate reading: I'm heavily considering just stepping away from Splatoon. That decision obviously would affect this blog (mostly, my OCs, which is kinda most of the blog at this point). I don't think the blog itself will go anywhere, and I'll probably use it for something in the future... alternatively i'll cherry pick stuff from here into an archive for people who like the worldbuilding.
Longer post under cut:
So what have I been up to this year? The answer is quite simple: NOTHING. Like, actually absolutely nothing. Aside from Art Fight, this has probably been one of my worst art output years of all time, which is really frustrating. That's between my horrendous mental health and depression chasms this year and a complete lack of both focus and inspiration (which can also get chalked down to the depression to a degree, yeah). So the very real reason to why there hasn't been much activity on this blog this year is because I just haven't Done Anything in general.
Now because I know there will be a few people who think "that's fine! you shouldn't judge yourself based on productivity!" you're right! I also agree. However the issue for me specifically is that most (if not all) the time I spend NOT drawing or creating, I spend sitting around wishing I could start drawing or creating, because that is like the 1 thing that keeps me sane on this freaking earth. Unfortunately coming up with OC scenarios in my head doesn't really result in output I can feel fulfilled by in any form as much as I wish it did, lol.
Now; The Issue. It doesn't take a genius to see that if you spend 9 months trying to finish like a dozen OC pages that you COULD do in a week or 2 if you wanted to, then there's probably more than just the problem of executive dysfunction (even though that's at least 60% of it for sure). Obviously my other major problem is that I live by imaginary rules and structures that make sense, but aren't actually useful at ALL in reality and are more than a hindrance if anything (the mental to do-list in my head that says i can't do X until I've done Y doesn't do very much if task Y takes 10 months and I also don't want to do it, and it also has no structured ending).
How does this tie into stepping away from Splatoon, you may ask. Well, the issue is that I have foreseeably fallen out of love with the series. Which isn't exactly news lol. Currently, I'm not even sure i will get the next game, if and when the time comes. Yes, the loss of interest is also expected, given that Splatoon 3 has ended and every fandom has this kind of downtime and lukewarm in-between-titles period. But the truth is that modern Splatoon (almost 10 years old!!!!) is tangibly different from the way the series was back when I fell in love with it. That was Splatoon 1, and while the series has improved in a lot of aspects and is thriving, it's grown in a direction that I just don't really like. Splatoon 3 had the most freaking horrendous, immersion breaking story mode they could've done, then they followed it up with a DLC story that was pretty cool but also compounded a lot of my fears about the series' future and played into every single thing i do not want Splatoon stories to be - fully character focused, random fucking villain, mundane event that's unrealistically world-threatening just because a kids video game needs a scary climax even though it's immersion breaking AGAIN, the whole thing taking place in cyberspace and thus offering basically no worldbuilding even though there is SO MUCH WORLD. I COULD GO ON.
The gist of it is that nowadays, rather than playing Splatoon and being inspired and excited at what comes next, I mostly find myself dreading what dumbass plot they will do next to throw a wrench in the otherwise good stuff. And when that's like THE main approach I have to what's supposed to be my favorite series, it is HARROWING. I can't even really blame the game for this; the story is NOT its selling point, the developers probably do their best to get the bits to us that they really want to tell, and at the end of the day the game is unfortunately a product. Worldbuilding for Splatoon is fun to a point. It's less fun when in order to actually write or create something coherent, instead of filling in the blanks, the blanks are 90% of the freaking thing. At that point you're just better off making something of your own instead of being anchored onto an IP that gives more problems than answers and occasionally shoots you with like a machine gun. Working in the realm of Splatoon is frustrating because more often than not, the questions I have ARE NOT MINE TO ANSWER, and the likelihood that the specific-ass questions I need answers to will ever be actually addressed is really low.
Tying this back to my OCs. Obviously I love my OCs more than I love myself which admittedly isn't that high of a bar but you get the point. The problem is that I spend a lot of time mulling over worldbuilding that, again, frankly isn't mine to do. Because if I want it to be Splatoon, then it should be mostly accurate to how Splatoon is! But the problem with that is that there's really not THAT MUCH worldbuilding in the series that you can work with, and most of the core game mechanics are just abstract enough that it's actually horrendous to try and come up with workarounds and ways for things to make sense that don't require just constructing a full knockoff version mirror dimension of the game and saying fuck everything that's in place here because Inkopolis Plaza literally has no roads in or out of there and I have no fucking idea how that's allowed when your only option is to jump the fence (or, nowadays, take the train which also isnt connected to a street as far as I remember). Between the face value issue and the lack of REALLY IMPORTANT worldbuilding, like - I will always come back to this - THE INK TANK'S FUNCTION 10 YEARS DOWN THE LINE - there's a goddamn ocean of plot holes and things that end up being obstacles to creativity rather than inspiration. I feel like I'm pretty solidly at the point (and have been for a while) where hanging onto Splatoon is really only contributing to creativity block and frustration with lack of freedom and the ability to actually do things.
So I guess those are my reasonings that I've put together just sitting here for the time being. The TL;DR is that I wish I could just do stuff without Splatoon's canon getting in the way, which is a really stupid problem to have if you're making Splatoon OCs. I feel this frustration extremely strongly every time I have to work with actual bigger aspects of the world; we still don't have an Inkopolis map, we don't know what the world around Inkopolis looks like, we don't know what the wilderness is like aside from Just Normal Forest and Desert and very few snippets as to what modern wildlife MIGHT be, I still don't know how the fuck the Inklings teleport to the goddamn arctic ocean to play a turf war at Shipshape Cargo co. These are all actually really important things if you're trying to establish a setting in any kind of storytelling that's outside of immediate city bounds (and even there, you need to know the layout of the city and its important areas). Also a fucking mutant bear and a baby salmon and a squid not wearing suitable gear went to space and fought on a rocket in space. These are some things that would give me peace of mind to not have to deal with in my own writing, probably.
So where do we go from here? Unsure. I haven't really made a decision on this front yet, though right now I'm leaning more towards actually going ahead with trying to do my own thing. That will result in obvious design and setting changes for my OCs whenever I get around to it. This blog probably won't go anywhere (again, unless I impulse delete it during a mood swing like i've almost done on like three separate occasions this year), but it will probably get less use, and I will probably end up making a new blog to post about whatever I end up doing once I get to a point where it feels like it makes sense. There's a chance that I will delete this blog and put all the interesting stuff on an archive blog for the people who are here just for the worldbuilding. My actual true passion for a long time now hasn't even been Splatoon anymore, it's just been cephalopods. I'm kind of done having Splatoon get in the way of the cephalopods, as thankful as I am that it introduced me to them...
If you read this to the end heres a treat for you = 🍪
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justaragdollysblog · 24 hours ago
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Can you write an alternate direction of "If I Didn't Walk In"? What if Jax did go to Ragatha about Marybelle instead of cheating on her? What if she confronted Marybelle about the situation while also trying to ease the tensions between them? What if something Marybelle says or does causes Ragatha to stop internalizing? What if she snaps? This is just an idea btw, I just love your fanfics :D
If I Hadn’t Gone In- Alternate Events (not canon to the series)
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I AM SO SORRY i’ve wanted to write and i’ve been busy with work and executive dysfunction has been absolutely kicking my motivation out the window lol!!
i plan to write this and the zooble ask i have as well!
TW: Hurt/Comfort, Suggestive talk, Heated argument, Mentions of verbal harassment
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All was quiet in the main tent, but tension steeped in the air so thickly, one could choke. The cast sit at the long dinner table, simulated food in front of them.
The adventure that day hadn’t been particularly grueling, but it was what happened after the adventure and during the feast, that caused this charged and heavy silence.
It was all because of a relatively new arrival: Marybelle. A tall and slim porcelain wind up ballerina, fair skinned and poised. She had an instant disdain for every circus cast member, but Ragatha and Jax were the unwilling victims.
Ragatha knew what it was like to first get here. The news didn’t ever get easier to relay. Maybe that was why, like every member that arrived after her, she tried to give Marybelle a sense of community and compassion when she spawned in for the first time.
In the first week or so, after the initial shock wore off, the pristine ballerina hadn’t let up on Ragatha. Every glare, every insult soaked in venom, was directed at the rag doll. On the opposite end…was Marybelle giving praise and unwanted attention to Jax.
Jax hadn’t been used to this attention from another girl, or even another member of the circus cast. Him and Ragatha had been together for months now, and he made it clear to the ballerina that she was the only one he ever loved, and he’d never leave her for anyone.
The strange thing was…she didn’t seem deterred.
Before he got with Ragatha, he might’ve accepted the flirtation. But he always felt differently around the rag doll. He could be himself. He didn’t have to be alone, and he could finally let himself love and BE loved.
So, when she blew a kiss at the feast they were currently undergoing, Jax stood up abruptly, slammed his chair against the table, and stomped off. He wasn’t going to cry in front of the others; he did have a reputation to uphold. He wiped frustrated tears and opened Ragatha’s door, burrowing himself in her bed. Her scent calmed his whirling mind down.
Ragatha looked after him in concern and worry. She bit her lip for a second. “I’m gonna go check on him, see you guys in a bit!” She forced a smile to the others, and subsequently to Marybelle.
Zooble rolled their mismatch eyes. “Okay, seriously, this [BOINK] needs to stop. We’re all lonely here, but there’s no point harassing them.” They glared pointedly at her.
Marybelle simply sipped on a glass of digital water. “We have all the time here, right? He’ll come around.” She giggled a little, tinkling bells laced with malice.
Zooble just groaned in annoyance. They’d be there for Ragatha if something happened, but if she wanted to get herself into trouble, there wasn’t much they could do. Everyone eventually went back to their rooms, leaving Marybelle alone at the table.
Ragatha felt her heart break at Jax’s angry crying. She knew when he was upset, and she knew he’d be in her room. She liked to do the same thing when she was upset (read as: also burrow in his bed).
She gently creaked her door open. The fairy lights cast a warm and gentle glow in the already cozy room. She slowly and quietly snapped the door shut behind her. Soft footsteps filled the silence as she sat next to Jax on her bed.
He lay, quiet and hiding his face, but Ragatha knew he was crying. She smiled softly, eyes half lidded with affection and gentleness. She didn’t say anything, but started petting his ears like he liked her to do.
His eyes softened and he relaxed his body under her touch. He pressed his head into her hand. Nothing was said for a few minutes, when-
“‘m sorry, Rags…” Mumbled Jax as he felt her finger trace patterns on his furry ears. He didn’t know exactly why he was apologizing; he just thought he should.
Ragatha shook her head slightly. “None of this is your fault, bun.” She whispered, affectionate and tenderness soaking every word. She gently brought her hand to cup his face, gently rubbing circles with her thumb in his fur.
Gods, she knew how to calm him down. Jax sniffled a little. “I just- I don’t want you to think I’d ever…” He didn’t finish it. He couldn’t bring himself to.
Ragatha softly chuckled. “Jax, I trust you. I know you’d never. I know that for a fact. We’re gonna get through this. Maybe I can talk to her!” She suggested.
Jax wiped his eyes again. “Yeah. That sounds good.” He couldn’t help himself but let out a large, toothy yawn. He was already tired, and crying was exhausting to him.
Ragatha laughed, louder this time. She loved his yawns like that. She loved everything about him. “Get some rest, jaxrabbit. I’ll be right here when I’m done, okay?”
He looked up at her with yellow eyes full of love and trust. “‘mkay. Love you, Rags.” His voice cracked a little and he leaned into her hand once more.
Ragatha smiled genuinely. How did she ever get this lucky? “To the sun and back, Jax.” She kissed him gently and lovingly.
A few minutes later, his breathing straightened out and small snores escaped him. He was asleep, already splayed out and covering the whole bed. Ragatha squeezed his hand and walked out.
Marybelle was on her way to her room, red ballet shoes forever stuck on pointe glided across the carpet. Ragatha took a deep breath.
“Marybelle? Can we talk?”
She paused, and then shot daggers at Ragatha. “Only if you make it quick.”
Ragatha took another breath. “I know it’s not easy getting here. You can always talk to us, but…it’s making me and Jax a bit uncomfortable with how you’ve been acting toward us…” Ragatha tested the waters with her opening statement. She tried to sound reasonable and pragmatic, but she wasn’t as good at it as Pomni.
Marybelle narrowed her eyes, winged mascara sharp as a knifes edge. She looked her up and down with a flick of her eyes. “I’m just trying to get to know the people I’m stuck with.”
Ragatha could practically feel her patience start to thin. “And there’s nothing wrong with that! Really. It’s just-“
“Just that you know he’d be better off with some prettier.”
Ragatha felt her blood turn to ice and she stopped. “You don’t know anything about him…” Ragatha cursed herself for letting a comment like that show her insecurities. To be truthful, Ragatha had always been insecure about her looks.
“Oh, I don’t need to. It’s obvious. He’s only uncomfortable because he has to hide it in front of you.” She snapped, once again giggling darkly.
She felt her blood metaphorically boil. She clenched and shook her fists. “You don’t know anything about him.” She spat, firmer this time.
Marybelle was full on laughing now. “Face it. Once we’re alone, he’ll forget all about you. I’ll make sure of that.” She dropped her voice to a sultry tone.
Ragatha felt something inside her snap. Just like everyone else, the only thing she tried to do was make everyone happy. Comfortable. She didn’t deserve this. Jax didn’t deserve this.
She approached her, getting in her face. Her voice was as low and as dangerous as it could go. Her voice was sharper than any knife. “You’re not going to get near him, or me, or anyone else. I don’t care if you find the exit and never come back. Stay away from him.”
She was breathing shakily. She loved Jax so much. Past the tough and rude exterior, he loved Ragatha in ways she’d never thought possible. He had been there to defend and protect her countless times.
Now, she was going to protect him.
Marybelle almost looked…scared. Her eyes darted around for a second. She huffed and scoffed. “Fine!” She pushed Ragatha back a bit and stormed off, censors beeping into the distance as she walked away.
Ragatha took a deep breath again. She felt a bit better. Maybe Jax was right about getting her anger out sometimes.
She brushed off her dress and approached her room again, slowly opening the door. Jax lay asleep still, somehow even more splayed out than when she left.
She sighed a little and smiled softly at him. She approached the bed and slowly crawled in next to him. As if he could sense her, he relaxed when she got close. She pressed a soft kiss to his neck and cuddled up to him. His chest rumbled with purrs.
She felt her eyelids drooping to the melodic, rhythmic tone. “Goodnight, bun.”
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I hope this is good!!!! IM STILL SO SORRY AB THE WAIT
reblogs are appreciated! see u guys later!
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rouge-the-bat · 1 year ago
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*this would mean finishing the ending twice at separate times
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purpurussy · 3 months ago
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#tw suicide#idk i feel like i am probably gonna kms after TIT#i would do it sooner but i asked one of my friends to come with me and it would suck if i made him go alone#and it is something to look forward to which is helping me hang on i guess#but ughhhh once uni starts again in september i know everything is gonna fall apart.#i already got an extension on my thesis due to being a useless shell of a person who can't motivate themselves to do anything atm#but i was supposed to get some work done over the summer and have so far done nothing#hence why i want to kms before i have to talk to my fucking supervisors again and admit yet again that i simply cannot do this 😭#and it's not just this. my executive dysfunction has been so bad over the past couple of years and it's only getting worse#to the point where i can't imagine being able to work at all. and if i can't work i can't get out of my parents house#and then what the fuck is the point.#every time i see someone on here talking about bonding with their parents over dnp I'm like damn what's it like#to have parents who actually want to talk to you DSFGJJKL i know they let me live in their house at my big age#but that's only bc id literally be homeless otherwise and they're not like evil. they just don't love me#also went through a deeply embarrassing breakup recently#tl;dr ive been in love with this person for over a decade and i thought they were the dan to my phil or vice versa.#then after 10 years they left me and i'll spare the details but it has me wondering if they ever loved me#i thought it was a “let's live together and get a cat one day” relationship#but now i feel like for them. it was just a “sex and video games” type situation#i am trying soooo hard to at least be creative bc that makes me happy sometimes but it's hard to not be overly critical of myself#and now im getting to a point where i can barely even find any joy in this space any more. for a bunch of reasons#most of which revolve around me being extremely sensitive. and this is like my last bastion of dopamine so that fucking sucks#idk i don't see the point in my life any more. a social worker actually told me recently that i should consider euthanasia so.#it's just completely over for me i fear#this is not even mentioning all the damn migraines. and all the other ways in which my body simply doesn't work properly#sorry for this weird ass vent I'm not in therapy any more bc i couldn't find a therapist willing to treat me+all my diagnoses at this point#and im scared my friends will stop wanting to talk to me if i talk to them about this. several of them already have#the 2 friends i have left anyway. that's a whole other thing. when they said it's hard for autistic ppl to make friends i took that persona#so uh at this point it's vent here or develop a substance abuse problem. and im already halfway to having a substance abuse problem#anyway dan and phil for the love of god please fucking post something tonight. unfortunately you are my only hope
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whump-queen · 1 year ago
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begging someone to hold a gun to my head so my brain will finally make me do my dishes, laundry, vacuuming, job applications, emails, messages,, just to get anything done at all without constantly wanting to die
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blackcurrant-juice · 1 day ago
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back in septmeber i got some kind of attack in the middle of lab so they sent me to the ER because they didn't want to take chances with me dying from chemicals but still made me pay the hospital fees myself. then i still had to go back the next week to finish my lab. then bad news happened last week and my. lab report is so fucking late. all these penalties. it will be worth fucking nothing. what did i go to the ER for they should have just let me die there #tbh
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theres-whump-in-that-nebula · 10 months ago
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Nothing pisses me off more than when people talk about my friendships with mid-support needs autistics and other people with differently-wired brains as if I am descending to help them because I’ve taken them on as a charity case. That is NOT true. Oh they’re a burden because they’re neurodivergent? WELL GUESS FUCKING WHAT: SO AM I! THE REASON I HAVE SO MANY FRIENDS WITH SO MUCH SHIT WRONG WITH THEM IS BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF SHIT WRONG WITH ME. WE ATTRACT EACH OTHER! WE LIKE EACH OTHER! IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD TO UNDERSTAND!
#How about I just start strangling ableists from now on?#Would THAT convince them I’m actually this person’s real friend?#Literally nothing I say to them is able to get through their dense fucking skulls—#as if it’s sooooo hard for them to believe I actually enjoy their company#Also (halfway unrelated): if I hear “It takes a special person to work with special children” one more time I am going to SCREAM#Tell me I’m calm; tell me I’m patient; tell me I’m creative— do NOT tell me I’m “special” for doing a job I LOVE#Can you imagine telling a quantum physics major “It takes a special person to solve special math problems?”#😂💀 WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. I’m gonna start saying that to people from other professions. To see how they like it.#The children are not a burden to me; the children are very enjoyable to be around#and I enjoy troubleshooting what is preventing them from learning and coming up with workarounds for them#I made a glued roll of paper for a kid who constantly peels their skin because I saw them peeling crayons#It works!#I made math problems into a Skibidi Toilet role playing game for another kid who hides under tables when it’s time to work. It works!#You know why I was able to come up with either of these inventions? Huh? You wanna fucking know?#1.) I peel my lips and mouth and palms of my hands and calluses and cuticles and scabs; and#2.) I have awful executive dysfunction and have to do weird stuff to engage myself#People talk to me like I’m one of the “normal” ones; little do they know I’m getting assessed for ADHD and score 142 on the RAADS-R#and I essentially self-destruct when I get mad so I don’t break valuable items or punch through drywall and oak doors#I give myself bruises that swell a half inch high and form hematomas under the skin#I think I’ve permanently weakened the blood vessels and a vein in my right thigh from beating it so much#because it only takes one well-placed blow on my right; but several blows to my left#And I can see the bruise pooling towards my heart along the path of that vein from day to day after the initial beating#and sometimes it just randomly aches when it’s not injured; so I have to shift my weight when the kids sit in my lap wrong#so with that and something else I did to it not super recently that I should have gone to urgent care for… I probably have nerve damage lol#so it’s gross when people say such things about other NDs to me as if I am above them#Just fuck off already
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subway-boss-jericho · 1 year ago
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Guys this may come as a surprise but as it turns out i just might need ADHD medication. Like. Badly. shocker, i know
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trainingdummyrabbit · 1 year ago
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heavily considering picking up journaling........
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orcelito · 1 year ago
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So I was chatting with my fellow very mentally ill queer coworker friend about mental illness (as we do) and I mentioned how I was realizing that my wildly manic depressive response to grief wasn't... normal...
& they were like 'oh my god Yeah I've been suspecting you're bipolar for a While now' bc apparently I get in... modes... where my pupils are Huge and I'm talking a mile a minute and doing 4 things at once and even my Posture is different
And then I'll come in the next day like all the life's been sucked out of me.
& she mentioned there's type 1 and type 2, 1 being the longterm episodes & 2 being them alternating on a day to day basis. And I'm just like... damng... I sure do seem to have that 2 thing...
Apparently it's not normal to alternate between manic and depressive states! Who knew!
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blossom-in · 1 year ago
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i knew id struggle with a shared kithcne but i didnt expect to struggle this much... i dont think it helps that i dont even know who im sharing with and it seems like more than the amount of people the kitchen is for are using it? like in a i share with 2 girls i think that already know each other and are 3rd years and make food with some of their friends so the kitchen feels full and i feel way too self concious to go and make my coleslaw wrap
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tallandsad · 1 year ago
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“you have to organize your mind” babes I have the Disorganized Mind Disease wtf do you mean
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machidielontheway · 1 year ago
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my biggest "what would fix you right now" is sleep schedule. i love sleeping, i love being in my bed, love the feeling of blorbo rotating while comfy in my pillow. i don't mind doing the nightly routine : pee time, brushing teeth [altho this is a recent change !], filling water bottle.
what i don't like and don't manage to do is the Break : stopping the enjoyment - or the avid, compulsory search for enjoyment - and actually closing my laptop. Closing the laptop is cutting up the connection and the safety, comfort of it. connection is : i am not alone. there is people there and i can hear them, listen to them, my room is filled with the sound of people living. i am not lonely. safety is : i am finding joy and am entertained - i am not wasting my life. i do not think of things i yearn to do but lack the energy and courage for. i am fulfilled.
Closing the door and getting out of my own laid spell and having to face reality again is very hard. I do not like it and i avoid it for as long as i can sometimes, even if i am tired and would love to be sleeping. (the reality is : sometimes i am lonely and unfulfilled ; the reality is i haven't been sleeping enough for years to have the emotional energy enough to be able to make concrete steps to change this)
i could say a lot more because this subject branches out back to itself but let's just keep what was the original goal.
i wanted to speak about it to the therapist i saw for the first time a week ago, because as of now sleep is Obstacle n°1 to be resolved in my life. but i didn't really connect with her, and it was a first session so a bit hard to go directly into one specific subject. However i spoke about it to a friend the next day, and she told me how she does it and we did a little brainstorming / our discussion was such to me.
one thing i discovered about myself in the last year is that i have very little perseverance, and if there is - or if i see something as such - an obstacle i will mostly not do the thing blocked by the obstacle. The ideal solution for this is : if you can't make yourself go past the obstacle, either 1) remove the obstacle or 2) change your course. When i was in my last flat the bathroom was some way away from my room and it was old and i didn't like it. I had a hard time brushing my teeth at night and mostly never did it. a temporary solution became "i go to pee super often, let's just brush my teeth each time with water for a few seconds" and that worked quite a bit. the obstacle was going to a place i didn't like with little reward ; the solution was do the thing when you're already in there, when you didn't have a problem to go because you actually wanted to". The problem literally disappeared when i moved flats and 1) had the bathroom directly against my room again and 2) i like the bathroom and don't feel uncomfortable spending time in it. It's a great things to know this kind of things about you, because it's easier to see how to go about solving a problem.
So with my friend as we spoke about it and it finally took a shape, i thought : clearly knowing and agreeing with all those things about "capitalism doesn't give you time so you spite it with a fucked up sleep schedule to get time for you" is not helping you : it's true but you can't change that rn. But the shape of "i don't like when i close the laptop and suddenly i'm back in real life with all my doubts and feelings", that i can manage. i can make the Break less of a break. With my friend i planned two things : 1) my laptop does not go in to the bedroom, and 2) i will put on sound on my phone until i shut off the lights (i dislike going on internet on my phone so no loophole here).
It did work in parts, which is actually great. I DID feel frustrated about not having the laptop, like a real feeling of "something missing / something not in its place", but it was not big enough that i couldn't go through it, which means that i can acclimate myself to it in time ; and it was enough that i didn't feel the break too keenly. Once i was done with my nightly ablutions, i kept listening to the video (music is Not Enough so i listen to Defunctland Fastpass vid) and felt myself falling asleep after ten minutes, which is also good : it's not enough to keep me awake through my tiredness the way i can power through for hours with the laptop (yes i have f.lux), and it's easier to stop and put down because my phone doesn't represent a Door to me the way my laptop does.
Now the thing to work on is that i need to actually do this where i do get in my room at an interesting hour and not just at two am, or it makes me as sleepy but less comfortable. So while a part of a solution is present the big boss is still there : the drive and motivation to do the first step which is "now we will begin". i once thought 'when i will have my new fancy phone where i can put on more than one alarm clock, i'll put some in the evening to create Doors for me to come back to reality and make a choice - i can stay where i am, or i can decide to go to bed". This increase the chance that i manage to go to bed earlier, instead of being kept in the waters of the spell until i see the clock hitting the magic hour where somehow i will accept going to sleep (which in these days is 1:30 AM). However i did NOT put on those alarms even though i've had my new fancy phone since january. which is another mystery to think about : what makes me 'not want' to put them on ? what do i fear ? i was excited about it once, what has changed ? is there another way i can make 'coming back to it' doors that would not be from alarm clock ?
I do like having my struggles put in this form because 1) i like feeling like i'm taking concrete steps toward something, because for so so so long i've been Waiting. besides the "fight or flight" reaction there is the freeze and i'm very good at it. and action is what makes you brain calm down from Fight or Flight. 2) i love analysis (recent discovery through work) ! it's like a treasure map with little adventures you have to follow until you find the treasure. But this also means knowing / searching for how things works, so you can understand why they're not working and find a satisfactory solution or a workaround.
anyway. yeah.
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silverislander · 1 year ago
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forgot to mention but my therapist is literally encouraging me to get adhd testing :') she really did believe me and still does, and i'm not just losing it i (almost definitely) have A Disorder holy fuck
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giantkillerjack · 2 years ago
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just got my wife off first thing in the morning and tbh i am going into this day with a hell of a sense of accomplishment
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