#even if it's just a diagnosis by exclusion. but seeing as i just thought of that when writing this i'm not going to add it to the list.

[miharuhebinata]

my 2025 resolutions

i thought it might be fun to go over what my new year resolutions are for 2025 :3 so, in no particular order:

read more. i only read 2 books this year despite setting a goal of 15, although i'm not particularly disappointed that i didn't reach that goal. it was a tough year, i went through a lot. i'm not gonna beat myself up over it. still, now that i'm doing better, i definitely want to read more this year, so i've set a goal of 5 for now. :)

start exploring more creative hobbies besides writing. for example, i started cross stitching back in either september or october, and now i've got a fairly large project i just started that i'm very excited about. also i got a miniature build-it-yourself diorama kit from my sister for christmas, so hopefully we can get started on that fairly soon!

speaking of writing, i'd like to write more. in regards to fanfic, finishing true colors is my number one priority right now, but i'm hoping i can also finally make some headway on the third chapter of trial and error. and i'm just gonna be honest, at this point i'm not entirely sure about the future of the lost children. i will say, while i haven't definitively abandoned it (not sure i'll ever be able to truly abandon it since it's pretty much my life's work lol), it is very low on my list of priorities right now.

and in regards to my original work, i'd like to start working on a detailed outline for the dk series since, as it stands now, i really only have a vague idea of where i want things to go and i definitely think having an outline will help get things moving a bit more quickly.

oh,and play more video games! 2024 was definitely the most disappointing year so far in terms of playing at least one new game every month, and i am determined to do better this year (although, since i'm so busy these days, i might change it so that i only have to play one game every two months).

i might add more to this list at some point if i think of anything else, but for now, that's it.

happy new year, everyone!

[burntoutdaydreamer]

Weird Brain Hacks That Help Me Write

I'm a consistently inconsistent writer/aspiring novelist, member of the burnt-out-gifted-kid-to-adult-ADHD-diagnosis-pipeline, recently unemployed overachiever, and person who's sick of hearing the conventional neurotypical advice to dealing with writer's block (i.e. "write every single day," or "there's no such thing as writer's block- if you're struggling to write, just write" Like F*CK THAT. Thank you, Brenda, why don't you go and tell someone with diabetes to just start producing more insulin?)

I've yet to get to a point in my life where I'm able to consistently write at the pace I want to, but I've come a long way from where I was a few years ago. In the past five years I've written two drafts of a 130,000 word fantasy novel (currently working on the third) and I'm about 50,000 words in on the sequel. I've hit a bit of a snag recently, but now that I've suddenly got a lot of time on my hands, I'm hoping to revamp things and return to the basics that have gotten me to this point and I thought I might share.

1) My first draft stays between me and God

I find that I and a lot of other writers unfortunately have gotten it into our heads that first drafts are supposed to resemble the finished product and that revisions are only for fixing minor mistakes. Therefore, if our first draft sucks that must mean we suck as writers and having to rewrite things from scratch means that means our first draft is a failure.

I'm here to say that is one of the most detrimental mentalities you can have as a writer.

Ever try drawing a circle? You know how when you try to free-hand draw a perfect circle in one go, it never turns out right? Whereas if you scribble, say, ten circles on top of one another really quickly and then erase the messy lines until it looks like you drew a circle with a singular line, it ends up looking pretty decent?

Yeah. That's what the drafting process is.

Your first draft is supposed to suck. I don't care who you are, but you're never going to write a perfect first draft, especially if you're inexperienced. The purpose of the first draft is to lay down a semi-workable foundation. A really loose, messy sketch if you will. Get it all down on paper, even if it turns out to be the most cliche, cringe-inducing writing you've ever done. You can work out those kinks in the later drafts. The hardest part of the first draft is the most crucial part: getting started. Don't stress yourself out and make it even harder than it already is.

If that means making a promise to yourself that no one other than you will ever read your first draft unless it's over your cold, dead body, so be it.

2) Tell perfectionism to screw off by writing with a pen

I used to exclusively write with pencil until I realized I was spending more time erasing instead of writing.

Writing with a pen keeps me from editing while I right. Like, sometimes I'll have to cross something out or make notes in the margins, but unlike erasing and rewriting, this leaves the page looking like a disaster zone and that's a good thing.

If my writing looks like a complete mess on paper, that helps me move past the perfectionist paralysis and just focus on getting words down on the page. Somehow seeing a page full of chicken scratch makes me less worried about making my writing all perfect and pretty- and that helps me get on with my main goal of fleshing out ideas and getting words on a page.

3) It's okay to leave things blank when you can't think of the right word

My writing, especially my first draft, is often filled with ___ and .... and (insert name here) and red text that reads like stage directions because I can't think of what is supposed to go there or the correct way to write it.

I found it helps to treat my writing like I do multiple choice tests. Can't think of the right answer? Just skip it. Circle it, come back to it later, but don't let one tricky question stall you to the point where you run out of brain power or run out of time to answer the other questions.

If I'm on a role, I'm not gonna waste it by trying to remember that exact word that I need or figure out the right transition into the next scene or paragraph. I'm just going to leave it blank, mark to myself that I'll need to fix the problem later, and move on.

Trust me. This helps me sooooo much with staying on a roll.

4) Write Out of Order

This may not be for everyone, but it works wonders for me.

Sure, the story your writing may need to progress chronologically, but does that mean you need to write it chronologically? No. It just needs to be written.

I generally don't do this as much for editing, but for writing, so long as you're making progress, it doesn't matter if it's in the right order. Can't think of how to structure Chapter 2, but you have a pretty good idea of how your story's going to end? Write the ending then. You'll have to go back and write Chapter 2 eventually, but if you're feeling more motivated to write a completely different part of the book, who's to say you can't do that?

When I'm working on a project, I start off with a single document that I title "Scrap for (Project Title)" and then just write whatever comes to mind, in whatever order. Once I've gotten enough to work with, then I start outlining my plot and predicting how many chapters I'm going to need. Then, I create separate google docs for each individual chapter and work on them in whatever order I feel like, often leaving several partially complete as I jump from one to the other. Then, as each one gets finished, I copy and paste the chapter into the full manuscript document. This means that the official "draft" could have Chapters 1 and 9, but completely be missing Chapters 2-8, and that's fine. It's not like anyone will ever know once I finish it.

Sorry for the absurdly long post. Hopes this helps someone. Maybe I'll share more tricks in the future.

[duskdog]

I started out posting some thoughts about how being surrounded almost exclusively by men for her entire life might affect Mia (particularly a lesbian Mia), but then I ended up just getting caught up thinking about her relationship with Roy. We don't actually get to see them on panel together very often, but we get a lot of off-panel and subtext. In fact, their very first conversation happens off-panel! We don't get to see any of it -- but we do get to see Mia being so pumped afterwards that she backflips over a stair railing. Much later, there's a point where she's hurt, and when Roy tells Ollie that she seems to be in good spirits, Ollie says it's only because Roy is visiting. The idea of Mia getting excited whenever Roy visits, and trying to be low-key about it and failing, is insanely cute. We know that she has her own reasons for wanting to be a vigilante, but she chose the Speedy identity in particular not because of Ollie, but because she admires Roy. She's inspired by him not despite his struggles, but because of them -- which is so important, because I think Roy still has a lot of trouble giving himself credit for overcoming his addiction, and still feels a lot of shame about it. It's not all one-sided affection, though. Roy is protective enough of her that he, like Ollie, doesn't want her to become a vigilante and is willing to fight with Ollie over it -- until her diagnosis changes his perspective. And when he misses her seventeenth birthday, he leaves his old quiver of arrows as a belated birthday gift -- including the Phantom Zone arrow, which shows a lot of trust in her. More importantly, though, I think we overlook the fact that he left this gift for her at Titans Tower, when even Mia herself didn't know she was becoming a Titan ahead of time. Ollie basically hooked her up with the Teen Titans without telling her because he thought she lacked friends and knew the Titans had been the origin of Roy's deepest friendships. The fact that Roy knew, ahead of time, to have Cyborg pass those arrows on to her means that Roy also knew that Ollie was going to make Mia join the Titans. I like to think that he was part of that decision -- that he either agreed with Ollie or even suggested it initially, because he wanted his little sister to have the same support that he had when he needed it most. Just... Roy and Mia, y'all.

[sysmedsaresexist]

The "alters aren't separate people" discourse is getting way too nasty. It is really none of anyone's business (except for you and your therapist) how you view the people/parts in your system.

All people need to know is that alters exist in the same body and mind. They do not have separate bodies, thus they are a system and need to learn how to cope and share responsibility as a system.

My therapist literally does not care if I refer to my system members as "parts of me" or "the other people." I do both all the time. I would not care if I had a CDD patient myself and they did the same. Your therapists want you to be able to express yourself authentically. They will help you explore your own beliefs and whether any are exacerbating your symptoms and how to untangle that if necessary.

It's important, as a psychologist, not to treat a CDD patient as separate people with no relation to each other. They are a system. The system is not their own abuser because they have an abuser introject, the system does not need to be enrolled in kindergarten because they have littles, the system is not committing crimes if one of their human alters is in a relationship with their own animal alter or whatever, etc.

Please can we all just be normal about this and let people recover and self-determine at their own pace?

Some additional thoughts on all of this --

Parts vs people language discourse is so interesting to me because I actually see a lot of systems who use people language treating their system as parts of a whole. These things aren't mutually exclusive. I wish people would actually listen to the experiences that others are communicating instead of barely scratching the surface because they got mad at the words the other person was using.

Anyways, years ago I remember another psychologist with DID bringing up how often pwCDDs early on in their recovery are triggered by the idea of being parts of a whole. Think about what that confronts them with. Think about how that puts them face-to-face with all the compartmentalized things that got so thoroughly dissociated away.

Before I was diagnosed, earlier on in my own recovery, I thought that my alters were supernatural in nature. Different parts had their own explanations for it. It ranged from tamer psychic/spiritual belief stuff like telepathy and mediumship, to actual genuine delusions. Some of us thought that we were all real people who existed in different parts of the world, connected mentally. Some of them thought the same thing but that we were all from different universes, somehow interfacing within a single body.

We struggled heavily with the delusions and dissociation. We were just trying to make sense of our fragmented experience.

Even after our diagnosis, even after we realized that alters were not like that, we still struggled. Because dissociation does that. Dissociation carves a divide between all parts of the system. We struggled to see ourselves as parts of a whole until we got far enough into recovery to lessen that dissociation and finally see how we were all interconnected within.

Thank God we discovered our DID before nowadays. We would've been flayed alive by the online community. We would've been attacked for just being Not Recovered enough, for using all the Wrong Words, and for having odd beliefs and genuine delusions about our own mental health.

There's nothing wrong with simply stating that alters are all parts of a whole. We are. Because that's what being a system is. We all share a single body and mind. But taking it further to invalidate the individuality of alters, police the words they use, dismiss their personal/spiritual beliefs, or attack them just because they're triggered or can't see it yet...?

What are we even doing???

[shawshankshadow]

i ramble about sxsg and disability metaphors and talk a little bit about love 👇🏼

first of all i’m high. so if this is incomprehensible hot garbage you know why. im fighting for my life trying to string words together

ithink a lot of what’s at the core of shadow gen is the theme of “accepting it in all its bittersweetness”. like - shadow going from hating himself for his alien dna to shadow learning how to be okay with it, acknowledging it while refusing to let it take away his autonomy and personhood. shadow going from blaming himself for maria’s death, wishing with all his heart that he could go back and “fix his mistake”, to respecting maria’s request to leave the timeline unaltered, transforming her death from being a result of his “failure” to being a result of him respecting her autonomy, even though it killed him to do it. being able to accept that her death was something he needed to allow “to exist” - both in the timeline and in his own internal reality - without pretending like he wasn’t shattered over it feeling like he was bad for not having prevented it. like “yeah this is kind of hard but i gotta let myself grieve and still live my life without forever chasing the impossible. life is still worth living, and i still deserve to live and be happy.”

and it makes me think of maria and her nids diagnosis, and how the brevity of her lifespan wasn’t a markdown on the value her life - she obviously still deserved love and life and joy and friendship, and she (shadow) wasn’t a “thing” to be socially othered because of these involuntary realities (maria’s genetic condition, shadow’s “disgusting” alien heritage).

with the black arms dna, we get a story about shadow accepting his body and heritage for what it is and finally letting go of the anger and self-hatred over the fact that this is his genetic makeup.

with his acceptance of her death - he goes from hating himself for not saving her, to consciously letting void!maria return to the timestream despite knowing she was going to dje, after which point he “returns to reality” (WHEW!!)

if you want to, you can parallel maria with shadow, and her nids to both his black arms dna and her death. following the parallels through, we could conceivably get a (extremely faint, not really even implied) disability acceptance story arc for maria, where she starts out seeing her diagnosis as this horrible curse, this disgusting thing that must be cured, that’s taking away her bodily autonomy - to accepting it and allowing herself to fight for happiness and acknowledge that she has worth and value despite everybody around her telling her she’s a walking tragedy. like, allowing herself to exist as something more than just a “person who needs to be saved” - (maybe, allowing herself to think that SHE can the one doing the saving? HMMMMMM?). we could get a maria who lets herself disengage from the constant daydreaming of “life will be great - but only once im cured!” to “life can be great now. i deserve to have a great life, and my disability isn’t mutually exclusive with that.” we could get a maria that accepts that she has nids (shadow accepting the reality of her death) (his alien dna) while allowing herself to grieve the nondisabled life she thought she was going to have (shadow grieving her, always) and allowing that grief to co-occur alongside her worth as a person, her deservedness of being alive and celebrated as she is (his genes don’t change that he deserves to be alive and happy and free of shame) (her death wasn’t his fault, and the ending of her life doesn’t mean he needs to stop living his) to her accepting that she had this disability and it doesn’t make her monstrous or less worthy of life, it doesn’t make her “wrong” (there isn’t a “right” way to exist, his dna doesn’t make him a monster) (grieving her and living a happy life aren’t antithetical to each other, he’s still allowed to proceed with life without pretending like he’s over it)

there’s a long history of disability being used as grounds to devalue, ostracize, pathologize, and infringe upon the autonomy of disabled bodyminds. disabilities are shunned as “pitiful”, or “unfortunate”, or “bad”. sometimes the presence of disabilities is seen as indicative of a person’s wickedness, as if the presence of disability is somehow a clue into the inherent goodness or badness of a person’s soul. disability is seen as antithetical to happiness, and disabled bodyminds are told that the only way to “properly” exist as a disabled person is to be miserable and full of self-loathing. certain disabilities have historically been described with words like “monster” and “freak” - an abomination that never should have been. like, it seems cartoonishly hyperbolic ableism, but this is legit the history of the rhetoric surrounding disability discourse, at least in the western cultural world. disability has historically been talked about like it somehow makes you less of a person. it’s why the disability pride community exists- it’s a deep, powerfully rich collection of bodyminds that routinely organize to fight this very thing. it’s a long tradition of people saying “yeah my life is one of disability - and also my life has value. i deserve love, despite what this ableist world thinks. i deserve all of me to be celebrated, including my disability, because it’s an important part of my life”

and. idk. i think about maria and her nids. and a potential story where she goes, if it weren’t for my diagnosis, i would have never met shadow, gotten to have this friendship, gotten to have this experience. a lot of this sucks, but i wouldn’t change it. i’d keep it as is, tough parts included. i can let go of the anger, of railing against this being my reality - im allowed to have friends and be loved and be happy. i dont have to crystallize my existence around mourning. it doesn’t make me bad or a monster or pathetic. it just is.

like, i wonder if she, as a little 12 year old girl growing up in the 1950s, as a “sick child” isolated on a space station miles away from everyone she loved, ever raged against her diagnosis. ever struggled with it. i wonder if maria, also, had to reckon with her bodily reality, and fought to accept its hard parts without pretending that there weren’t some beautiful and wonderful parts because of it. like if she had to learn how to love herself without viewing her disability as inherently bad.

i wonder if shadow ever realized that his rage was just grief, and his grief was just love, and to let go of his rage, was to acknowledge his grief and return to the terrifying wonder of letting himself love, instead of closing himself off and shutting everyone out. i wonder if shadow lets himself have - if he acknowledges that he wants and loves - his friends, instead of denying it up and down and sourly rejecting any threat of connection.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

hey! so i hope this isn’t too creepy/nosey, but im a medical student and i was reading your possible fibromyalgia post and have a couple ideas lol. full important disclaimer that im only partly into my studies and im currently in the hypochondriac phase and also your summary was amazing but a real doc would ask way more questions, so please consult with an actual doc and take everything i say with a grain of salt! but like your symptoms aren’t nothing so i would def encourage finding a doc that you trust to do a proper exam and run some tests. also im operating under the assumption that you’re under 50 lol, bc if you’re over 50ish that’s a whole diff list of possible diagnoses.

so the thirst thing you’re talking about is often called polydipsia and is commonly associated with diabetes insipidus. that’s not the normal diabetes you think about, but happens when your body can’t regulate fluids in your body properly. id think of this if you’re also peeing a lot lol. your doc would have to do some kidney tests for that, which wouldn’t be part of the blood panel you mentioned. i’m a little skeptical that it’s hypokalemia bc that would’ve showed up on your blood test results. it could be transient electrolyte imbalances when you exercise so have one of those electrolyte packets when you exercise lol, bc it never hurts to try the easy solutions first, but chronic low potassium should’ve shown up? tho eating sweet potatoes has never hurt.

other things it could be is a lower motor neuron problem bc you mentioned twitches and muscle weakness which is typical for those. i def can’t say more without tests, but look into/get your doc to look into myasthenia gravis or LEMS and see if either of those fit. i think it’s possible bc these often also start with face/upper body symptoms, but would need way more questions/tests to know. it’s unlikely but could also be a glycogen storage disease called McArdle disease bc you describe a second wind thing when you exercise along with exercise intolerance. that’s super rare tho so it’s unlikely unless someone in your family has it/has similar symptoms.

also look into autoimmune stuff like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and sjögrens disease. i have way less useful info on that bc we haven’t gotten to it in class yet lol, but sjögrens looks promising bc you often get dry mouth with it, and it often goes along with rheumatoid arthritis which could explain the joint stuff possibly.

it’s also totally possible this is fibromyalgia, but i would be cautious diagnosing it bc it often comes with fatigue and cognitive stuff which you didn’t mention. it’s also more of a pain thing, and doesn’t include your twitches/dry mouth. it’s def possible, and it was def something i thought of when i saw your symptoms, but personally i would want to rule out other stuff first bc fibromyalgia is pretty vague and often a diagnosis of exclusion when other things don’t fit.

sorry for overwhelming you!! i just saw your post and was like hmmm those symptoms sound like Something. again take my advice with a big grain of salt, but i do really think it’s worth asking your doc about it and getting tests done, bc even if there aren’t cures there are def treatments to help with a bunch of this stuff. it doesn’t sound urgent, but at least from your post your symptoms don’t sound like run of the mill aches and pains. hope you figure stuff out!!

The problem with 'muscles don't work right ouchy and I am also tired' is that it's a symptom for Absolutely Everything That Can Be Wrong With The Body. Is it cancer? Is it a terrible diet and sleep schedule? Who knows!

The doctor ran a diabetes test with the blood panel and it came up negative, but I don't know if that checks for weird kinds of diabetes. (Diabetes does not run in my family until we get very old.) That test was memorable because I have stupid fragile veins that freak out and collapse at the mere sight of a needle so I had to get stabbed nine times, they didn't manage to get the middle reading at all, and in the end they resorted to just stabbing my thumb with one of those diabetes home blood test thingies and manually squeezing my blood out into a tube drop by drop.

I looked up polydipsia and I don't think I have that. I think I just prefer my mouth to be wetter than my salival glands want it to be. 🤷‍♀️I think most of my problems are probably not related to any rare chronic disease, but just run-of-the-mill autism making it hard to look after myself or properly notice and process my physical condition and adapt accordingly. I don't eat enough fresh foods because it's hard to plan with the very short timeframe to prepare and eat them in. I'm uncoordinated and damage my body a lot through overwork or using muscles incorrectly because autism makes it hard to keep track of those things. My mouth feels dry and my skin feels itchy and my muscles feel sore because that's what being autistic feels like. My sleep schedule is garbage because my executive function is garbage and even once I do manage to get myself into the bed I can't just "go to sleep", I pass out when I'm ready to pass out.

I'm not saying it's impossible for anything else to be going on, but I think the known factor is the simplest explanation here. It's 2:30pm and I've been putting off breakfast for five hours. Every time I go into the kitchen I get distracted by housework instead. I am very hungry. This is not behaviour that is conducive to a well-functioning body.

[angels-wantme-dead]

It is my personal philosophy that individualistic identity is an illusion. We're bred and raised as people to value one true identity, but I don't believe identity is a single point you can put your finger on.

It is my belief that not only are we as people ever changing, but that we all have multiple selves. Let me explain.

The body theory states that personal identity is tied specifically to your body. But if this is the case, it begs a similar question to the ship of Theseus. Cells are born, they grow, they contribute to our living body, and they die. We are still us.

Is it such a stretch to suggest that identity is not a solid object but far more akin to a more abstract concept?

Another example;

Are you the same person you are when you were 5 years old? 10? 15? 20 even? I severely doubt it. Change is a part of human nature in the sense that we are living beings. Beings that grow. Beings made up of cells that are born, they live, they die. Much like we do collectively.

So why are we as people so focused on a single minded identity? The very concept of an alter ego is a rarity, something you only see in comic books. Even dissociative identity disorder, (which has more symptoms than just plurality and thus is not exclusively defined by it) is very often relegated to a Hollywood horror stereotype.

The alternate identity is shunned. Is encouraged to be kept secret. To be controlled. To be silenced. When the truth of the matter is that while many of us thrive in this single identity centric society, many of us struggle within it as well.

Those of us drawn to define ourselves as plural, our mindset is different. We see between the cracks that make us ourselves.

Think of a gemstone. A gemstone is composed of many things. Pressures and minerals that form faceted sides. Sides that shape to a point and become the whole; a gemstone.

We as people are the same. Our cells make our organs, our organs make our bodies, our bodies make us.

But who are we?

Are we the person we become at work when we talk to our boss? Are we the person we become around our partners? Our closest friends? Or are we our 'true' selves around our family? Do you have a twin? Are you your true self around them?

Now again, this isn't to say that all people suffer from dissociative disabilities. This isn't the case. What I'm discussing with you now is not the diagnosis of DID/OSDD but rather the philosophy of multiple identities.

Because plurality, or multiple identities, are not the only symptoms of these disabilities. Many are very content in their singular identity.

But why is it such a crime for a person to indulge in the philosophy of multiple identities if that is what they're drawn to?

Who is to say what part of this plural is their 'true' self.

All in all, what I mean to say is that I reject the idea of 'true' self.

Because it's my philosophy, my personal belief, that we are all like the ship of Theseus. We are all gemstones.

And in the end there is no higher authority that falls onto you that makes your thoughts on the matter any more real than mine. Because I am not arguing the science. Science is irrelevant here.

I am arguing self determination. I am arguing for the rights of others to be who they are drawn to be. And if that identity is multiple, then so be it.

[compassionatereminders]

When I was in school I was known as the smart kid and everyone...my parents, teachers, peers...thought I was gonna go places and attend some top university or whatever. I didn't want to because to be frank, I didn't see the point in racking up debt for my family to have to pay off. And also I just wasn't interested in college. I guess the way everyone seemed to push it onto me didn't help either, it just drove me further away from wanting to.

Now I've been graduated from high school for years at this point and I have nothing to show for it. I'm ashamed. I thought I could just use my creativity to get me through life but now I'm burnt out and probably somewhat depressed as well. I've cut myself off from my old teachers because I don't want them to see what I've devolved into. And the people in my life do tell me "you are [age], and have done nothing with your life". But how am I supposed to decide on what to do? The things I could do pays horribly or somehow requires a degree which I don't want to pursue, and the things that pay well are in fields I don't want to do. Or even if I do find something I could do, I'm told it isn't good enough and I need to find an actual career. I am sick and tired of it. I feel like I screwed up my life and I'm not even past my mid-20s yet. Therapy isn't an option, nor is pursuing any diagnosis for my neurodivergent disorders.

I wish I could reload an old save file and redo my life from a certain point so maybe I could have a shot at being...anything but a perceived failure. But I can't! I gotta stick with it! And it sucks!

I'm sorry for this long vent, I just...wish other people understood. I hope you are doing well today.

I didn't even manage to START high school, and considering that in my young years education was the ONE thing I was decent at, that still feels like a big loss/failure... So I can't say I don't relate to this, though if we're judging ourselves exclusively by these terms, I'm a much bigger "failure" than you are! Just saying...

[ncisfranchise-source]

EXCLUSIVE: Up until this week, fans of the NCIS franchise were led to believe that it was Mike Franks who had the biggest impact on Gibbs landing a job with the military police. And for the most part, it’s still true — except we now know that his rough-around-the-edges boss doesn’t deserve all the credit.

Fascinated by how “unexpected people come in and out of our lives who are sometimes being the most influential,” Showrunners David J. North and Gina Monreal decided to craft a story that involved Gibbs finding inspiration from the unlikeliest of people — his ill-tempered landlord. Titled “Blue Bayou” after Linda Ronstadt’s 1977 cover of the Roy Orbison classic (“I feel so bad I got a worried mind, I’m so lonesome all the time“), Gibbs (Austin Stowell) forms a unique connection with Ruth (London Garcia), whom he briefly met in the November 25 episode titled “One Flew Over.”

The two not only spend much-needed time together — he helps her track down some losers who stole her stuff — she also encourages Gibbs not to be “a little bitch” about getting through the NIS training. “You’re a damn good big sister,” he tells her after he graduates.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that in the NCIS canon, we know Gibbs kills Pedro Hernandez and then suddenly he’s an NIS agent,” North tells Deadline. “Gina and I just talked a lot and realized we’d love to see a story with Ruth and Gibbs. We think it’s really a story that matches who Gibbs is. He met Ruth when he had no one and he couldn’t even tell his own father that he had left the Marines. Ruth was there for him when no one else was. In the end we learn that Ruth really was the one that led him to believe that this could be a career for him. She saved him.”

For Garcia, it was an unexpected thrill to get the call that she was wanted back on the Origins set after playing such a small role in the November 25 episode. “It was just me, who’s kind of a slumlord, showing an apartment. I did the one episode and thought, I just want to make sure that they got what they wanted,” said Garcia, whose previous experience includes small roles on This is Us, American Crime Story, Unprisoned, and 9-1-1: Lone Star. “When I read the script [for Blue Bayou], I couldn’t believe it. The story is so incredible to me. Every time I read it, my face was wet. I cried every time.”

Stowell said some of the episode — like when Gibbs and Ruth spend quiet time together doing puzzles — was highly personal.

“I talked to David and Gina quite a bit about my personal life,” he tells Deadline. “I’m a puzzle person and my father passed away a few years ago, so I draw a lot on that to this role. There’s so much of Gibbs that comes from my relationship with my dad. And part of what helped me get through that time were puzzles. I was living in L.A. at the time, it was in the middle of Covid, and I had a neighbor who became aware of what was going on, and we would go for a walk pretty much every day. So he bought me a puzzle, and then it became a bit of a tradition that we were passing puzzles back and forth to each other. I really hope that he watches this episode.”

Shooting those puzzle scenes was a breeze, explains Garcia; it was all improvisation so they would make up different conversations and end up laughing about it afterwards. But the meaning behind them was important to convey to viewers.

“There’s that comfort level you get with people where you can be around each other without talking,” explains Garcia. “There’s so much they could be talking about that they don’t want to talk about it. And the fact that neither one of them is pushing each other is comfortable in itself.”

Stowell appreciates how the episode “sets up so much of why Gibbs is the way he is.” His stress over learning about Ruth’s fatal diagnosis leads to him to believe that he failed his psych evaluation, which in turn makes him a magnet for bar fights. Franks (Kyle Schmid) ends up hiring Gibbs for NIS because Ruth dressed him down for not believing enough in their mutual friend.

“He’s been hurt time and time again by those he holds closely, first with his family. And now this is another huge, let’s call it a thorn in his side that lives with him forever,” Stowell tells Deadline. “Yes, he does eventually get the job at NIS. Yes, he goes on to have this incredible career that we all know and ends up in Alaska and seems to be happy there and finds his peace. His relationship with Ruth has to be a direct catalyst for that.”

“This is where we get to know the real guy,” continues Stowell. “It’s what I have loved about taking on this challenge from the very beginning. I thought it was such a unique opportunity to play a character before they become the hero. We’re learning how he picked himself up. We’re learning how he built the foundation of a fortress that is Leroy Jethro Gibbs, standing in the river in Alaska. That to me is a real gift to explore as an actor, but also so interesting for the audience to get to see how the man was made.”

[the-palelady]

I was reading your carrd earlier (looking to see if your requests were open for later 🫣) and I saw you suffer from a chronic illness. Do you mind me asking if that affects how or what you write about?

IF THAT’S TO PERSONAL I UNDERSTAND!!! But I also suffer from a chronic illness myself, so I like to hear what motivates other people 💚💚💚

omg no worries it isn't too personal at all. although i won't delve into it too much. i'm kind of glad to see an ask like this seeing as i'm just now coming out of one of my slumps.

i was diagnosed with my illness when i was 15 which i guess is fairly young for what i have, and despite my diagnosis a lot of the doctors i went to didn't treat me for it???? even though the diagnosis was clearly written in my charts, they treated me for other things like bipolar depression and bpd. they were...basically in denial of my diagnosis, said i was too young, etc? i didn't find a good doctor until i was 23 (literally last year), and i'm just now on the path to getting properly treated for it. unfortunately because i went so many years not being given the correct medications and what not, it kind of got worse.

so i do tend to step away from social media or disappear for extended periods of time. in the past, this has offended people, but at the end of the day, i have to take care of my peace, and i believe everyone should do this. at the end of all of this, we all die (that sounds awfully morbid, i know) but it is the truth. i don't want to spend my one chance at life trying to prove something to everyone and trying to please everyone around me. it just doesn't seem right or fair.

i've always been a people pleaser, but as i've become an adult i've broken that habit. this is my life and i need to do what's right for me, and if stepping away from social media or not speaking to anyone can help that than that's what i'll do. i believe everyone should do that if that's what they need to do in order to protect themselves. everyone deserves to be happy. everyone deserves to do what they love.

this includes my writing. i don't write about what everyone else wants to see. such as my bloodborne au. bloodborne is a very niche game. not very many people have played it due to it being a playstation exclusive, but it is also considered old and outdated. i wrote about it because i love ghost and i love bloodborne. did it get as many interactions as other cod writers works within the community? no, but i don't care about all that. the people that did interact with it i am incredibly grateful for, and i'm happy they enjoyed it. but at the end of the day i wrote it for myself. ghost has been a comfort character of mine since i was a kid, and bloodborne has been my comfort game since its release. combining the two was just a silly little thought i had.

since the beginning of this blog it's never been about how many followers i have, how many likes or reblogs i can get, or how many people notice my writing. it's just been about sharing my writing with people who might take interest in my dumb ideas. if you read it and interacted? thank you. i'm so thankful and appreciate you so much. if not? that's okay. thank you for being here. i appreciate you as well, and i hope you have a wonderful day. numbers don't matter to me. i'm just here because i love some fictional guy like everyone else.

i hope everyone here writes about the things that they love and not because they feel obligated to write what their followers want them to. but i also hope everyone here, not just people i've interacted with, or people i follow, but anyone who reads this, takes the time to take care of themselves, and steps away if need be. your mental health is always important.

(simon isn't going anywhere, he'll be waiting for you when you get back ♡)

[meditating-dog-lover]

Health Update

I'm surprised by how glowing and clear my skin is. The only difference I made was taking the DIM Detox supplement and switching to reverse osmosis water. I also took some antibiotics which helped get rid of some infections. But those are gone - neck and ears completely healed. I do not have any rashes on my face and neck like I did weeks/months ago. My hands are clear and smooth with some cuts and some infection that's in the process of healing. They are itchy and I do rub them under hot water when I wash my hands, but they're also clear and smooth (feels like how they felt after I got my steroid shot and pills).

I would have never thought that excess estrogen is responsible for my eczema. I feel much much better now and I'm so happy. I thought it was a gut issue, but I guess not (not that gut health isn't important, but it wasn't the cause of my skin inflammation).

I am also slim and not bloated. I know DIM helps women lose weight, but I don't believe I have much at all to lose. Digestive enzymes help a lot with bloating.

I would imagine that some forms of birth control or even a hysterectomy would get rid of my eczema. But those are extreme (mostly hysterectomy), and I don't want to do any of those. My obgyn was more helpful with helping me clear my skin than my dermatologists. I definitely knew it was hormonal.

I've been taking the DIM for 2.5 weeks and I'll see how my skin improves with time. It's getting cooler now so I'm worried that the cold and dry weather might make my skin worse. I hope this doesn't happen.

I really like the reverse osmosis water. I think it does help health-wise. Getting organic food helps too, but I don't think it's possible to eat 100% organic. Nor is it possible to use 100% "clean products". I feel like naturally supporting key detoxing organs help. In this case it would be the liver because it plays a role in metabolizing and getting rid of excess estrogen (DIM helps it do that). The supplement is great, but of course I want to check with my doctor to see if it safe to take longterm. Unfortunately it's also pretty expensive.

I'm going to therapy tomorrow to discuss my diagnosis. I'm autistic and was diagnosed at a late age. And I want to get the support I was supposed to get decades ago.

I got a coffee today and some vegan cheese puffs. When it comes to "less than healthy stuff", I prefer having a small portion on the side than a whole treat. I had a mocha and brownie last week on Thursday and Friday. I think that's fine, but I would prefer to have a small treat. I did not finish my coffee and had a few sips because I just wasn't craving it. But overall my diet is pretty health and rich in fiber, protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. I would say I eat 80-20 at this point. Not 100-0. I would not necessarily say I eat very low sugar either. I think my diet is an improvement because I used to order milkshakes and McDonald's years ago during COVID. I recently used to order pizza and sandwiches often, which are rich in processed white bread which is loaded with sugar, as well as inflammatory oils and I'm sure the sauces had hidden sugars. I now eat out less and eat less sugar, just not 0% sugar. And I'm still fine.

Today I remembered the days when Facebook, Myspace, Formspring, and Twitter were popular when I was in school and why I didn't have a lot of friends and people messaging and interacting with me. I always had less than 200 Facebook friends. I now realize it's because I'm autistic. Of course I never deserved social exclusion. but it's just something I remembered and considered.

I will heal mentally and get the support I need as an autistic woman.

In the past there were times where my blood sugar was great. I think what helps with it is 2 things, maybe even 3. (1) being at a healthy weight, (2) minimizing stress (fasting raised my blood sugar), and (3) physical activity (walking and light body circuits). I used to follow Rachael Attard's programs and her workouts were designed that way. I remember doing her programs and was at a healthy weight and my blood sugar levels were great. Though I was depressed back then and I was eating a lot of sugar and junk. I don't want to eat a lot of junk and don't want to be depressed and stressed. I'm at a healthy weight now and am putting less stress on my body because I'm not fasting everyday anymore. However I can go back to walking (I used to walk for an hour back then) and doing some light body circuits. I want to avoid anything heavy and challenging like HIIT or lifting because I tend to overeat when I do those.

I have experienced more physical stress from undereating than from overexercising in the past. For example, calorie restriction or fasting will cause more stress and inflammation than doing workouts focused on weighs and HIIT. I feel like I can continue with the anti-inflammatory diet and cycle fasting and definitely walk and do some sweaty pilates. I know this will help with my metabolic health, which is already great (blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol, etc...). But exercise will help even more with my sugar profile.

[aspd-culture]

How do you know if you view relationships as transactional? There’s definitely people I interact with casually even when there isn’t a clear benefit in my mind.

But I do have a view that if I give, you’re required to give and if you don’t, I’m not gonna give anymore because I’m not gonna waste my time on somebody that only obtains benefits from me but I gain nothing from them. I feel like the view I just described though is something I see in pro social relationships too? So I’m unsure if I fit the bill of viewing relationships as transactional.

I definitely do keep people around longer than I should though if I see some sort of benefit, e.i; they give gifts, they’re wealthy and spend it on me, sexual gratification, etc. Even if all feeling for them is gone, those superficial/shallow things can make me hesitant to leave. A real life example is my biggest worry about cutting ties with toxic family members of mine was the fact they wouldn’t send birthday money anymore… these are people I grew up with and I felt nothing besides “:( but birthday money” I miss the birthday money more than I actually miss the people (which I don’t, I feel no pull to contact or see them again and if I do it’s usually because I’m bored).

Okay, so the transactional view of relationships is a pretty specific type of thing, and is one of the main things that can lead to diagnosis because of that. It’s not the “if they don’t give as much as I do/if this isn’t balanced, I’m out” mindset. Although that is definitely something many pwASPD have, it is also a completely normal and healthy boundary to set. It also isn’t keeping toxic people around solely for their practical value, although again many pwASPD do that.

The transactional view of relationships is best explained at the start of a relationship (of any variety that you choose - so not family because that is not a choice). When you are starting to enter a potential friendship/romantic relationship/etc. what are you thinking? If it’s “this person is cool I wanna hang out with them more” or “I really like this person and I wanna spend time with them” or “I enjoy being around this person”, it isn’t transactional - at least not in the ASPD way. While we can feel those things, and not *all* relationships every pwASPD has are always transactional (some pwASPD have entirely transactional relationships, some have some transactional view and some emotional attachment to all relationships, and some have certain relationships that are transactional and certain ones that aren’t), that is considered a typical start to a relationship of any variety.

The transactional view of the beginning to a relationship is usually the exclusive reason for the interactions and/or choosing to become closer, either without thought of who the other person is, or in spite of who they are. The most that is read into is “is this person a threat” and “what can they give me/do for me/what benefit can I get from them”. For many pwASPD, the emotional attachment is an afterthought that comes later, if it comes at all. So rather than “this person is cool I want to spend time with them” it’s “this person can fill this need for me, and I don’t think they’re a viable threat (either because they don’t seem to be a threat by choice or because I’m certain I can handle any threat they may attempt to pose)”. Think about it like how you would think of like a manager at a job - you’re not worried about if you *like* them, though that’s a plus if it’s there, you’re worried about if you can tolerate them well enough to get the benefits of having the job.

If you lose emotions for a person and still stay around them because they hold some practical value, it is technically a transactional relationship, but for pwASPD, that’s the rule not the exception, and it usually starts that way a good amount of the time. So, with the example you gave of toxic family members, rather than just worry about cutting ties with them because of the birthday money, many pwASPD would have realized early that they were toxic, but chosen to become close with them anyway because the social pressure to send birthday money would be there.

I hope that makes sense/helps. I’m definitely not saying you don’t have this view of relationships, just that the way you described it/the specific examples you gave wouldn’t necessarily fit the way it usually presents in ASPD.

Oops gotta add on because I just saw this in the ask box after I finished typing this -

So this description is more of the transactional view we were talking about, but it’s still not the entire reason you even have the person in your life (as far as it sounds, anyway). So while you’re hanging out only to get something from them and that is definitely something a pwASPD would be more inclined to to do, it sounds like your thought when you first became friends with this person was not “oh well I should be friends with them because they’ll give me free alcohol/Wi-Fi”. It sounds like you are “using” them for something, but that that is a secondary bonus of an existing relationship rather than the entire purpose in making that connection in the first place. I hope that makes sense, it’s not super easy to explain.

[weepingpussywillowtree]

I have complicated feelings about self-diagnosis in the autism community. Obviously, there are immense barriers to getting diagnosed as a lower support needs person, especially an adult, in the US. as well, there are potential downsides to an official diagnosis to consider. I'm not unilaterally against self-diagnosis. Suspected self-diagnosis and concern from teachers and therapists is what got me to ultimately seek official diagnosis.

However, I feel like self-diagnosis has become so common and accepted, as well as the sentiment that research about autism is "wrong" or that professionals by and large don't know what they're talking about but the online autistic community definitely does that things have started getting a little toxic and harmful. (Rest below cut)

I see people so often talk about autism like a personality type or a horoscope online. I see other autistic folks encouraging watching tiktoks as a valid form of "research" to self-diagnose. I see autistic people getting pushed out of autism spaces because they don't fit in with this new clique of self-diagnosed folks. I see self-diagnosed autistic people downplaying the experiences of higher support need autistic people, distancing themselves from that part of the community. Misinformation is rampant, sometimes even disinformation. The symptoms of low support needs autism can overlap with many other mental health conditions, and I very rarely see this considered. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder and there needs to be symptoms present in the first few years of life for a diagnosis to be made usually. This is also almost never brought up. Experiences are treated as universal, autism treated like a card that gets you into a special club where everyone gets along, when the reality is many autistic people are extremely different from each other, present in completely different ways, and do not get along at all.

Frankly, I also see a lot of sexism in the online autistic community. There has been such a focus on how women and nonbinary people are often under diagnosed and dismissed that autistic traits associated with boys and men are villainized as stereotypical and broadly mocked.

And, as taboo as it is to say, some of the folks in the autism self-diagnosed community are very clearly young people identity seeking and trying to find a place in the world. This by itself is not a bad thing, there is no harm in exploring your identity and spending time in a community that you ultimately decide is not something you identify with, but when the online autistic community becomes exclusively lower support needs, self diagnosed adults, who will tell you up and down that medical professionals are always wrong about autism and they're right. Who will spread misinformation, downplay the experiences of higher support needs individuals, make assertions about how autism isn't actually a disability, and turn the whole thing into the next myers-briggs personality type....

I don't know, I can't really see it as a good thing. Now, often, when I disclose my diagnosis in confidence to friends, especially people my age, they say something to the effect of "oh, I always thought I might be autistic too, because I don't like loud noises and sometimes I don't fit in" and it makes me want to tear my hair out. When I ask where they learned about autism, it's always this same community online. When I dig deeper, and ask about their other experiences, or talk about the diagnostic criteria, they are usually surprised. Like, oh, I didn't realize it was that serious. I'm not a medical professional, and I'm not here to tell anyone that they are or aren't autistic, but this common perception that autism and ADHD (don't get me started on the online ADHD community. It's not my place to speak to it really, but some of my close loved ones with ADHD have been really harmed by the bullshit they spread) are just quirky fun personality types where you don't like loud noises and are an introvert or you think your lectures are boring sometimes is so so harmful, and I'm honestly so sick of people being attacked when they talk about the way the self-diagnosis community can cause harm in neurodivergent spaces. This can be a nuanced conversation. Two things can be true, self-diagnosis can be a useful tool and systemic barriers to diagnosis can be a bitch. AND autistic traits overlap with a lot of other conditions and also just normal behaviors, which can lead to inaccurate or unreliable self-diagnosis and minimizing autism as a neurodevelopmental disability is harmful to the autistic community as a whole.

[go-go-devil]

Compilation of Various Changeling Headcanons of Mine

Been a while since I last wrote a massive list of hc's I have for a character, but I've been feeling bad for the lack of Patho content I’ve been sharing and want an excuse to talk about our beloved Clara the Changeling 🐀✨

Some spoilers for two of Pathologic Classic's endings are included in these, I should mention. Otherwise, enjoy!

Clara is a demisexual lesbian. I don’t need to do an in-depth detailed analysis to prove it, I just… know it!

She’s also neurodivergent, but in a way that makes it hard to give her a proper diagnosis. Really it’s most likely that she has overlapping disorders (adhd, bpd, autism) mixed in with others exclusive to those who’ve spawned from the Earth.

I’ve discussed this in another post once, but Clara’s biggest fear is her own body. A combination of knowing she was born from the clay and bones of the Earth combined with the truth about the world itself has given her a dreadful insight on how fundamentally different her physiology is from the other humans in the Town. Oftentimes she’ll feel different textures than what her skin and hair is supposed to feel like, and will need to stop what she’s doing and convince her mind that she’s real before the right textures return to her senses.

Is a tactile learner, and often prefers to show affection via touch (ex: patting one on the shoulder/back, holding hands, hugging, etc.)

The stress of her journey made her shed many tears, but now she’s become embarrassed about it. She’ll do everything in her power not to cry in front of others if she’s ever upset, simply saving it until she’s buried herself under some bed sheets or finds a lonely alley to cry her sorrows away.

That being said, if someone she cares about did find her sobbing and wanted to comfort her, she would throw herself into their arms and take in their compassion like a flea to fresh blood!

Clara was born with an innate understanding for very adult concepts and philosophies despite having the body and mind of a teenager. However, she finds herself preferring the conversations she has with the Town’s kids compared to the adults. 

For example, with Sticky and Murky she can assuredly engage in a long, thoughtful debate on the mystical qualities and immaterial essence of life held within some nuts they found lying the dirt, while with the Bachelor and Haruspex she needed to slowly and carefully explain to them why it’s wrong for adult men their age to bully a teenage girl.

I have many complex feelings on her bond with Alexander Block, but I do believe that after her meeting with The Powers That Be she chooses not to accompany Block on the front lines. Even if she wants to leave, she knows more than anyone that this world only exists within the confines of its setting, and thus she can only live within the space created for her and the others. Perhaps Block can leave, but just as she says to him in her ending, "You came out of thin air and you'll pass into nothingness."

She still sees the Albino as her brother, and will often times travel deep into the steppe to visit him.

Once the plague is quelled Clara eventually begins to form a new family unit by being communally raised; essentially moving about at her own leisure between the residences of the members of her bound most patient with her (Yulia, Rubin, Lara, and even Bad Grief on some occasions) as well as Daniil and Artemy, who are both willing to put their past quarreling behind them. Presuming the Termite Ending was picked, of course!

The Saburovs remain unwilling to accept the future granted to the Termites, and Katarina in particular still believes that Clara is her proper heir and has tried to reach out and bring her back into their care to start over. She avoids them like the plague, still not ready to forgive them for abandoning her.

If the Humble Ending was picked, then she lives all by herself in the Rod, with only the consistent company of her two surviving humbles and the Bachelor and Haruspex; the three having ended their feuding after learning the shared knowledge of being dolls, yet still haven't fully recovered from the trauma of it all. She sends letters to Commander Block hoping to hear about what the outside world is truly like, even if all he can tell her are what battles lay on the front lines, and is trying to defy her fated rivalry against Maria and Capella by trying to form an alliance, perhaps even a friendship, with them to ensure a good future for the Town.

Capella is the only one willing to tolerate her presence at the moment, yet is still uneasy about this new future the Changeling has created…

While Clara always preaches about her fierce understanding of the divine powers of love, she genuinely does not understand the concept of being loved herself. Thanks to her hasty upbringing in a cult, she assumes that it is something like a commodity: needing to be earned by successfully completing tasks, and being instantly lost if she fails said tasks. The reason her mood nosedives into dramatic self-loathing whenever she angers/fails the people she cares about is because she believes that they now no longer love her as much as they used to.

Okay those last few points were pretty depressing, let me lighten it up a bit. Clara and Grace often have fun sleepovers in the cemetery together! Or at least what weird teenage girls closely connected to death find fun, like communicating with the dead and expressing their feelings toward one another in a series of flowery, cryptic riddles :)

I can totally see her owning pet rats! They’ll cling to her scarf and ride her like a taxi as she walks throughout town, freaking out every adult she passes.

Going back once more to her complex feelings about her own body, Clara also feels just as strange about her gender. She knows her anatomy isn’t built the same way “normal” girls’ are, despite taking the form of one. Often she feared that those who knew of her unnatural birth secretly saw her as an inhuman monstrosity, let alone those who haven’t found out yet. But eventually, with the support of those closest to her, she learns that humans inherently do not fit into the neat, fantastical boxes of cis heteronormalcy and slowly embraces her unique form of girlhood, and perhaps may start experimenting with using other pronouns too.

[shannendoherty-fans]

Shannen Doherty’s Close Friend and Doctor Describes Her 'Beautiful and Loving' Final Moments (Exclusive)

"She wasn't ready to leave because she loved life," Dr. Lawrence D. Piro tells PEOPLE of the actress, who died on July 13 after living with stage 4 breast cancer

By Dana Rose Falcone Updated on July 16, 2024 10:09AM EDT

Actress Shannen Doherty died on Saturday, July 13, after fighting stage 4 breast cancer

The Charmed alum found a friend in her oncologist Dr. Lawrence D. Piro, and he was by her bedside when she died

Piro calls Doherty "an incredible warrior" to PEOPLE and says "things turned much more difficult in the last couple of weeks" when it came to her health

Shannen Doherty considered her oncologist Dr. Lawrence D. Piro not only a trusted adviser during her breast cancer journey, but also a close friend.

“We both immediately got each other,” Piro, the President and CEO of Cedars-Sinai affiliate The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute in Los Angeles, tells PEOPLE. “Sometimes that just happens. The vibe is right and you understand each other and you understand what the thoughts mean as if you had known each other for years before that meeting. That's what it was like for us when we first met, and it was that way all the way until the very last.”

Doherty, who died on Saturday, July 13, at age 53, previously stated that she and Piro had “a great relationship, one of mutual respect.”

“The key is to find a doctor who listens to you and appreciates your concerns,” she wrote on Instagram in September 2016. “Not every cancer patient is the same. Also, it took me a lot of meetings to find my dream team. Don't settle.”

The Charmed star first received her breast cancer diagnosis in 2015 and went into remission in 2017. The cancer returned in 2019, and Doherty revealed in 2020 that she’d been diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 cancer.

Piro, who appeared on the Jan. 1 episode of Doherty's podcast, Let's Be Clear, remembers the actress as “a very intelligent person” who “was a very active participant in her entire health journey.”

“Whenever she learned some new fact or some new idea in her medical journey, she would immediately call me or forward something to me and we would discuss it and see whether it had any relevance to her scenario and where it would fit into the scheme of things for her,” he recalls. “I was always amazed with the way in which she could separate her own emotions about being so young and being on such a difficult journey from the fact-finding part. She was so razor focused and level-headed about those things.”

According to Piro, Doherty was “a step above positive” when it came to how she viewed her prognosis.

“In her mind, she was not wanting to consider any other alternative than ‘we were beating this and we were engaged in life,’” Piro says. “We didn't really talk about what that meant in terms of additional time for her because that just wasn't how she operated. She wanted to live every day, not as if it were her last day, but as if it were the beginning of a whole another chapter for her.”

The actress said on the June 24 of her Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty podcast that she planned to start chemotherapy again in hopes of beating her stage IV breast cancer that spread to her bones last year.   “We kept going until we couldn't go any more,” Piro says. “The last conversation that we had, she was in the process of realizing that things had taken a pretty significant turn. The conversation was about love and support and caring and still fighting through. She wanted to continue to take treatment and fight through, even though her physical condition had taken a bit of a downturn. And so we did.”

The doctor explains that Doherty found herself with “a limited situation of options” due to “her condition” over the last few weeks. “But still, the conversation was about, ‘What can we do within those limitations?’ as opposed to, ‘Let's do nothing,'" he says. "That wasn't even open for discussion, because that's not how Shannen lived. She was an incredible warrior in everything she did.”

In the face of declining health, the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum had also been involved in stressful divorce proceedings with her ex-husband Kurt Iswarienko, who she filed for divorce from in April 2023 after 11 years of marriage.

But, “I never got the sense that that emotional challenge was draining her ability to continue to fight on the medical side,” Piro says. “It certainly made it more challenging, but she's such a winner that I feel like she pulled all the resources necessary to give the best fight against cancer, even though she was being very emotionally challenged. She fought so hard and she didn't believe that it would ever be over, which kind of makes everybody around you believe that, too, because you want to believe that.”

However, it quickly became evident that that wouldn’t be the case. “Things turned much more difficult in the last couple of weeks, and that's when it became clear that it was heading in a different direction,” Piro says. “We continued to fight while putting in more support and we just kept loving and hoping and supporting.”

Piro spent Doherty’s final moments with her and some of her love ones, including her dog Bowie.

“In the last few hours, she was in a place where she was very comfortable and sleeping and transitioning, and she was surrounded by some of her very close friends,” he shares. "The room was surrounded by a select group of friends that were giving her a lot of care and support. It was somber and sad, but beautiful and loving. The hardest thing about this was that she wasn't ready to leave because she loved life.”

Piro typically associates Doherty’s home with vibrant dinner parties. “She was an incredible, incredible chef,” the medical expert says. “It was very strange being in her home with her in a bed and not in the kitchen bringing out pizzas and cooking pasta. She loved cooking, she loved giving parties. She loved entertaining. What kept her going was a love for life and a desire to have more life. That was incredibly painful for her not to be able to do that.”

Piro believes Doherty’s legacy should be one of treating others with kindness.

 “This tremendous love for life was inspired by a love for people and a love for being treated well,” he says. “And I think that that grew out of being in public eye from a very young age and feeling misunderstood most of her life. She would want us to live our lives as strongly as we can, committed to our convictions and to not allow others to label you or to misrepresent you and stop you from living your best life.”

For more on Shannen Doherty, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

[i-totally-have-adhd]

I'm starting the process of seeking an autism diagnosis, and so far it's gone OK. I have an appointment on 7/7 to talk to my PCP, who is young, and female and seems very open minded. I am hoping that the long list of bullet pointed symptoms works to convince her that I'm autistic.

My ADHD makes me chatty, and I have lots of friends, have dated a lot, and have many things about me on the surface that don't make me come across as "typically" autistic, or at least, autistic in the way most health care professionals are expecting to see. They first of all are not very familiar with autism as a disorder outside of young boys. I'm a 46 year old woman with a full time job and a lot of friends, so this won't be easy.

I think though, that all the evidence I've amassed from the last two months or so of absolutely obsessive research into autism and how it presents in women and girls and afabs, will help convince her.

I just wanted to touch on masking for a moment, because I'm not even sure my PCP will know what that is, but I feel like I seriously started masking my autism about 30 years ago, when I started high school. That's when I looked around me and realized other girls didn't act like me, and furthermore, if I wanted any friends or any acceptance, I would have to start acting like they did.

That's when I changed the way I spoke, the subjects I talked about, and didn't bring up any of the "weird" thoughts I had. That's when I started pretending to be carefree and charming and light hearted, when inside, a hot day, or a confusing social situation would send me into a meltdown. No one thought I was autistic, let alone myself.

Masking my ADHD was easier, as people expect women and girls to be flighty and distracted and daydreamy, They're just being silly girls right? But autism. That made me a tom boy. That made me blunt, and awkward and too loud. That made me have strange anxieties, and strange thoughts about the world that made me seem weird to other children, so I started masking heavily. I always put on a happy smile when I met people, made charming jokes and engaged in hours of chit chat and small talk, collapsing in exhaustion afterward. All I wanted to do was talk about sex, or true crime, or science fiction, or psychology, but I contented myself with talk about fashion, and boys and pop singers and popular shows.

Now, at 46, this mask will be a detriment to me getting diagnosed. I constructed it too well. No one believes me. I don't even know how to behave like an autistic person. To me, doing so is social suicide, and will open me up to derision, mockery and exclusion.

Idk where I'm going with this, but needed to get it out there. Masking sucks, and I hope I can get diagnosed despite having a carefully constructed mask.