#i blame vyvanse

[trojanteapot]

tl;dr the numbers in Infinity Train makes no sense and makes this scientist want to scream cry and throw up

Being an astronomer that is also a fan of Infinity Train honestly gives me psychic damage when it comes to how absolute bonkers this number system is. For most of my life after Book 3 I have chosen to ignore it for the sake of my sanity but I cannot any longer.

For example, let's take a look at these two screenshots:

So in the screenshot on the left, Grace is something like 13-14, and on the right, she's 17-18 or something. The point is, this is roughly 4 or so years apart right?

Now take a closer look at Grace's number on the right screenshot:

So there's around 15 visible digits. Which would mean that her number is in the 10^15 range, or a quadrillion, right? Nope.

There's digits all around her arm. So let's use our physics brains and assume her arm is a perfect cylinder, and that 3 digits spans the diameter of this cylinder. So with grade school math we know the circumference is pi*diameter, so actually she would have 3 times as many digits on her arm at that moment.

3*15 = 45

her number is in the order of 10^45.

10^45. One with 45 zeroes behind it.

Do you KNOW how MASSIVE that number is?????

BUT WAIT you say, her arm isn't a perfect cylinder, her wrist is smaller than her elbow. Fine. 10^40 then.

Coincidentally, when I made a number glove for my Simon cosplay, it also ended up having roughly 40 digits on it, but I digress.

LET'S PUT 10^40 INTO PERSPECTIVE.

This is the Sun.

In terms of kilograms, the sun weighs 2x10^30 kilograms. So again, that is 2 with THIRTY ZEROES behind it.

But if Grace's number at the beginning of Book 3 was a mass in kilograms, it would be at least ten orders of magnitude greater than that. Not ten times. Ten orders of magnitude. In other words, TEN BILLION TIMES THE MASS OF THE SUN.

Do you know what is ten billion times the mass of the Sun?!

THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD

So, Infinity Train writers, you are telling me, that in the span of four years. Grace's number went from 702 to A FUCKING GALAXY SIZED NUMBER?!

Okay chief. Sure. Why not.

[moe-broey]

Unfortunately I will be condemned to a fate worse than death tomorrow though.

[aachria]

I have done it! The fic is ready to go and has left the station! I will let you know that the upload schedule is goanna be lack as I have zero to motivation!

But that leads me to my question! How do you Aachria stay motivated for as long as you do? You have been pumping out chapters left and right and I'm pretty sure all of us want to know the big secret. How do you do it?

I'm putting my money on grit and determination!

Slay! Proud of you!

Grit and determination is a.... very kind way of putting it. I'm gonna level with you, I have no goddamn idea how the actual fucking hell I have managed this. I Do Not Know. This is absolutely the longest I've worked consistently on a project like. ever. Honestly I think the accountability of posting it is what kept me from losing interest in writing it near the start?

Would it surprise you to know I have never written actual like... story outside of school assignments and half-baked ideas when I was like 14? I was like. not a writer before I started writing this. (I have however always held the delusional idea I was a very very good writer, even when I was in grade 6 and absolutely was not. The audacity has always been with me.)

I partially blame the Attention Keeping Crack™ baked into One Piece itself, because it refuses to unsink its claws from my consciousness. Also the Vyvanse. It's also probably the Vyvanse.

So honestly; I have no fucking idea how I'm doing what I'm doing. BUT, using ye olde strategy of focusing your attention on planning and the details of parts of your story that interest you when what you're currently working on starts dragging is pretty great. Tired of the arc you're stuck in right now? No problem! You got a random fascination with bank heists and art theft? Sounds like something you could plan into an arc in the future! Just shifting your interest and attention around your story so you don't get hung up on parts you don't find as fun really pays off in the long run, both for holding your attention significantly longer AND for planning how your story will look in the long run with the bonus of it being much more fleshed out then if you just chugged through linearly while running on fumes. And your attention will always swoop back to what you were working on before with luck and patience willing.

Oh, and that grit and determination usually turns out to be spite and pure hedonistic urges to do whatever the hell makes you most happy at the moment. They look very similar though if you want to put that on your job or college applications ;)

BOOM AACHRIA WISOM OF THE WEEK, BASK IN IT.

[gumy-shark]

>be me >take adderall and vyvanse as needed to help my brain function in everyday life >they impact my appetite and cause me to eat less, ultimately hindering my ability to function anyways bc your brain cant work if youre not eating and drinking and sleeping > i dont know why i greentext formatted this but i can probably blame it on my lack of brain functioning due to lack of sleep and food

[thenarwhalgal]

Hyperfixations are the fucking worst. I’m not doing my work, I’m not eating well or sleeping well. I don’t like this. I don’t want to be like this. Forced to find enjoyment and motivation for only one specific thing for a month or two and then constantly move on, forgetting everything else that I need to do… I know it’s a matter of discipline but I don’t know how to fix this.

To be utterly consumed by a spur of the moment piece of media every time I find something new I like. For my brain to refuse to work for anything else. I try… I try to keep up with other things and sometimes I do but I just can’t make my brain work for anything else when it happens. Its like every so often my entire life goes to a standstill for something I don’t even get to choose and I fall in love obsessively with something I like and then I get behind in stuff I can’t fall behind it and I get overwhelmed and everything else becomes even harder to focus on because there’s so much to do now. So much to catch up on. When satisfying that craving I love but hate that I have is so easy and within reach.

I wish I was normal in the head. I wish I functioned. I wish I worked properly. Is it too much to ask for? I’m able to handle this stuff. I could do it. I could do it well… but I just can’t. I just can’t and the worst part is I have no excuse. Sure the ADHD but that’s not an excuse… everybody else can do it. I need to do it. Yet here I am falling apart. Overwhelmed and anxious and depressed and finding joy in the only thing my brain decided would make me happy at the expense of the rest of my life as it slowly drains me of anything respectable i could and should be doing instead. I just want to be able to function properly. Thats all.

But hey… maybe when the insurance goes through and I switch from Ritalin to Vyvanse… my fifth fucking medication… it’ll work this time. It’ll let me have the best of both worlds. I can keep my brain and I can make sure nothing else falls apart. It’s wishful thinking. But I’m going to fail college eventually if I keep up with this and I need that hope right now.

I’m so tired of knowing all the things I have to do… and not being able to do any of them. Of knowing all the things I want to do… and not being able to do them. Of the things I want to do and my brain agrees with me… and doing it so much I lose interest and content and motivation for creative projects before I’m ever truly satisfied. It shouldn’t be this hard, right? I don’t know, I hate using ADHD as an excuse, I hate blaming my problems on it. I hate saying I have it I feel like I’m faking it like I’m lying to people like I’m just broken inside. I just want to be an adult, someone who can do their work without feeling like I’m dragging nails across my skin with every paragraph I’m forced to read. But I’m stuck with this. It won’t go away. It’ll only get worse and I’m already not coping well with it. How can I be so accomplished… have done so many things and been talented in so many fields… and yet be so so so so so bad and doing anything at all. My professors think I’m brilliant and they love me for reasons I can’t understand, my homework when I do it is usually top rated, I can do it! It’s possible… but I just don’t. Fuck.

I try so hard. I try so hard all the time to just function at an average level. I try so hard to be average. I could be one of the best if my brain just worked. Instead I’m barely passing with the knowledge of how well I could do and how poorly I live up to the possible ideal or even normal. But hey… at least I can watch 6 seasons of television in two weeks, 2,000 fanfics in one. Write 40-60,000 words in a month at most. Isn’t that so useful? It’s gotta be possible right? Doing better? Improving? Figuring this shit out? It’s gotta be possible. I have to be able to do it because if it’s not possible. If I’m stuck on a permanent downward spiral because of something I can’t control and can’t explain and nobody understands but those who also suffer from it? I don’t know how to deal with that.

[puckgoss]

really? if you just look at the name, Dixie D’Amelio on TikTok, there’s a bunch of videos on how she’s like on some thing as someone who I see firsthand what drugs does to people it’s pretty obvious she on it and blames it on ADHD and caffeine but if she did have ADHD, a caffeine wouldn’t affect her to that extent. First it was a blackeye that she said she hit herself with the door but it was very clearly someone punched her in the face. Then she went on the lifestream where she was just not right in the head and it’s pretty clearly what she’s on I mean it’s always somehow snowing in California. There was also this one time in her reality TV show where she’s at dinner with her family and she’s like super hyper and says that she had like three Red Bulls a different time and they’re all hitting her right now but their studies shown that caffeine doesn’t really affect people with ADHD to that extent

oh lol if u look in my tag for her i've posted abt most of this before. i thought something else had happened

coke is the drug of choice in the NHL so it's not like she's way out of left field on that one lol. whether she's using coke, stimulants like vyvanse or adderall, both, etc

i truly don't think anyone in the hockey world would care that much abt any of this stuff. so many musty old men execs who barely know what tiktok even is

it pisses them off more that trevor gets attention for being outgoing and scoring "flashy goals"

dixie would have to do something insane like get a highly publicized DUI or smth to draw their ire

[ladybuggirl123]

Fascism/Flop Eras/The Art Of The Rebrand

If the tone of this post is completely different from last week it’s because my prozac just started working!! If i came off as obsessive and impulsive it’s because i was!! i’m working on it 😁

Alright, Where did we leave off?…

Emotional Terrorism I believe it was-

I now see how entirely dramatic this phrase is(tysm prozac). I probably need to watch my provocative language, I’ve never In my life been a chill or fun girlfriend.

If “emotional terrorist” is a fitting title for any of these people honestly who could blame them, i’m basically an emotional fascist. After my regime is overthrown I have to rebrand obviously.

Teenager’s (and me), are calling this “having an era” . A little google action reminded me this all started with the “Flop Era”

This is what a flop era looks like for the unfamiliar:

this is what getting ur emotionally fascist empire taken down by a emotional terrorist does to a mf

#bringbackcryingselfies

i think i almost bought a “flop era” tshirt in 2021 but i went with ironically hot instead

simpler times…lol

Anyway all the sudden everypony online was in their fleabag era or their reputation era. It’s 2023 Taylor Swift’s having her eras tour and now I barely remember who I was before it became a part of the cultural zeitgeist for a normal non celebrity girl to have definable eras.

here are a few favorites of mine:

i don’t endorse any of these eras also i think i probably do this to an unhealthy degree

bpd grrl era:

grunge post woke fleabag on vyvanse era:

the I ready theory (only lasch) era

looking like I play a [REDACTED] in a [REDACTED] era:

Rebranding isn’t a new thing at all but hyper specific digital language used to describe how you express yourself obviously is and this is a tired conversation at this point.

How is “I’m in my looksmaxxed bushwick kinderwhore era” a thing you could say and how did I get to a point in my life where i know exactly what that would mean. It’s internet buzzword salad and it feels like it’s too much information for my brain to be storing and holding onto at all times (is this where my ancestors kept the berry forageing knowledge? is this really what i’m using it for??)

quick grass touching break 4 u

whatever mental illness i have was designed to pick this shit apart for hours so sometimes this all drives me a little nuts but it’s ok cause i’m a mental health warrior💪🏼

When you feel it’s time for your new era you could sift through pinterest rabbit holes and tiktok echochambers trying to find the perfect niche that describes the new and improved you. You’ll probably find a corner of the internet with other people just like you who like all the same esoteric celebrities you do, who listen to the same underground bands and who all talk the same cool way. But they are all doing it a little better than you.

Then you wake up from the digital coma you slipped into from stemming from unsupervised internet access at a young age, and you realize this is the dumbest shit in the world and ur actually and literally a full ass adult..

🎀Here is my personal plan of action for a non internet poisoned rebrand:🎀

Step 1- The Transformational Event

This could be a breakup, a breakdown, a move, or just a general realization that challenges all ideas you previously had about yourself.

Step 1.5- Deep Emotional Pain

😁

Step 2- Get Ur Ass up

Envision the you that has moved on and no longer feels held down by the emotional weight of the situation. How do they spend their free time? What passions are they pursuing ? what kind of people do they surround themselves with? lastly how do they dress how would they adorn their space? Work from the inside out.

Instead of looking up glass skin healed french girl aesthetic on pinterest you could journal about this version of you or even make a physical vision board.

Step 3- Faking it

Initially you might feel like you are not mentally stable or cool enough or whatever to be this person. But the person is you and the only way you can become them is to just start.

Step 4- God and Faeries take over

Spoiler alert: what i referred to as “faking it” in the last step is also called vibrating at a higher frequency. As I type this out I’m aware that i only maybe half believe it but also this has always worked for me my whole life so……

The circumstances in your life will basically rise to meet you where you are. you’ll start to realize you have the types of friends the new version of you would, you’ll develop the habits you wanted to and you’ll realize you have faked it till you made it.

Step 5- You are sexier and doing better than you ever imagined!

As time goes by and you think back to yourself immediately after the initial transformational event you’ll realize you have become even cooler and happier and more grown up than you hoped you’d be

If u did this right you’ll also feel a little bit of gratitude for the transformational experience because it basically provided a short cut for ur prefrontal cortex development.

that’s all the knowledge i have on this phenomenon here’s a tiktok and a podcast episode that probably inspired me to write this

[compassionatereminders]

Personally I have just managed to whittle my ADHD waiting list time from THREE YEARS to ~12 months through a combination of research and begging, I'm convinced medication will drastically improve my quality of life and yet I'm not here to tell you that you're the reason for that and shouldn't be posting about your drug use? Destigmatising recreational drug use, and yes other anon I mean fun drug use not just problematic drug use/addiction, helps save lives because it allows for conversations about safer usage, changing risks to recreational users (e.g. "bad batch" alerts are issued in real time at some UK festivals by NGOs/charities testing shit) and means people aren't afraid to disclose to healthcare workers what they've had, when and how, etc. If stigma didn't exist against recreational use you wouldn't be in someone's DMs buying into the myth that we're denied drugs-for-healthcare because of recreational users. I'm too tired to explain liability and the fact that black markets only exist because of repressive drug policy and stuff but yeah it's not tumblr users having fun with amphetamines

Yeah these people who are like "I am being denied medication I need because you are doing drugs for fun" are just... completely missing the big picture! Like I get the frustration. I'd be frustrated and possibly provoked too if I was in that situation. But blaming individual people for systemic issues and discrimination is just a distraction from the core problem and it's exactly what the people behind the systemic criminalization want you to be doing. Because if you're busy pointing fingers at people like me for stealing your Vyvanse, then the infighting will continue to be the main focus and the real culprits will be able to continue washing their hands and avoid facing accountability and resistance

[eremitical]

blaming my bad dreams on the fact that vyvanse was still active in my systwm when i went to sleep

[stardust-in-my-mind-blog]

toxic blindness

the depth of trauma isn't necessarily

about the event or situation or people involved

the wound is all about the pain inflicted

and those who choose to refuse to see it

the suffering that people tell you isn't true

so you can't even trust your own symptoms

the wisdom of your own body or memory

they tell you it's your fault or a pattern to invalidate it

it's about how something takes the truth away from you

or forces you to bury the shame of it inside yourself

it is the blank stare of someone being unable to

process your experience or accept your perception

and tells you that it's your tone or the way you express it

that makes everything burning inside you untrue

it's about how you blind yourself to survive it

and yesterday there was a moment where I realized

just how many times you plucked out my eyes

just to save your own delusions

and how very little you care about things you use

I will need to make an appointment for Vincent

I remember calling him into my life when my youngest was born

he would be the Shadow I loved from Homeward Bound

golden and sweet and a guardian for the life

I thought I was building with you

and he was everything he should have been

when we got him from the Amish house

the woman selling him had tears in her eyes

and even wrote in his paperwork that he was her favorite

she'd named him Dane and praised his sweetness

and he was everything our family needed

he even learned how to heard chickens and rabbits

and was so gentle with everything

last year I cut his hair to look like a lion

and he really looked like one

my golden liondog who lost all his vitality in the winter

even with the baths and medicine and treatment

I tried to give him the disease of this house's energy

manifested as some kind of cancer and infection

his hair is falling out and sores are all over his body

at first he didn't seem to be in pain but now

all he wants to do is sleep to escape living

and it's time for me to be with him until the end

it's something that's very hard to face because he was

such a loyal guardian and companion

and we spoke about it the other day

how it was time to make an appointment with the vet

watching him die fills everything inside me with dread

I feel like I failed him somehow or didn't do enough

I know illness doesn't work like that but my heart doesn't

I just wanted to save him and I couldn't

and now I get to make a call to put him to death

and be there with him when he takes that last breath

and you said to me in the car with the sun shining

you didn't even say this in darkness

you casually mentioned we could call animal services

they'd come pick up him and get rid of the body

we likely wouldn't even have to pay anything

and I wonder how bad you wish you could do the same with me

then you mentioned something about us just being

physically separated and therapy and I tell you

I don't even want to share lawyers with you because

this event is no longer amicable but I'm

playing the role for the kids while I uncover

every infected wound from last summer that keeps me

from being able to use my logical facilities

to move forward and get the fuck away from you

and after fifteen conversations where I told you

that we may have different opinions of the status of your abuse

that's fine because I don't have anything to prove to you

but I think people who don't thrive on gaslighting

their autistic wife into a state of mental disability

will find my evidence I compiled to keep my sanity

far more interesting than your unearned arrogance

and you asked me why I was doing this

if I just wanted to take Theo away from you

but only one of us have ever threatened that

you also tried to kill yourself with Vyvanse

you put me through a blender until all I was was fear

and a growing sorrowful rage that I feared in myself

look at you making another fucking projection

patterns of behavior really die hard don't they

you hate your polluted soul you want to blame it on me

I told you that my intention was to know all of my options

and that after looking them all over

I would choose just like you did these last four years

I will do whatever is best for my interests

and bed you made for yourself

I don't even care about the outcome now

I'm just looking forward to the experience

because you punished me for having any sort of desire

or emotion or dreams outside your conniving

and manipulative and superficial judgement

your limiting scarcity mindset

but my name means judgement of god

and my household gods have so many ideas

on what they want to do with the man who treated

their daughter like a broken and rejected toy

you never were good at keeping anything nice

I suppose it has something to do with respect

and that's something in our relationship that was sorely neglected

you denied my experience so often that you believe

only your own version of the story

you'd even throw your own dog in the trash

just to avoid responsibility for anything

and I'm purging and releasing all of it

creating something out of this stagnant energy

Florence sings so many haunting songs

but my favorite line is the one where she says

every song I wrote was an escape rope

tied around my neck pulling me up to heaven

and from that vantage point

it's going to be real nice

watching you burn in hell

seize the day motherfucker

because soon it will be night

[tweakin-journal]

*this is not to encourage drug use, don't blame me if you bite off more than you can chew

I wanted to make a side blog to document my experiences on crystal, starting this two weeks after my second time smoking.

Background things for context: I had done a bump once as a teenager ( bad choices lol, snorting glass is like snorting glass. And it burns so bad and will give you the worst headache ever.) I have been a daily weed smoker for years, have plenty of shroom experience, used to im ketamine daily, haven't had any in about 2 years, plenty of danphetamine experience, mostly Vyvanse and Adderall that was proscribed to me for adhd that I would occasionally do recreational doses. I've had several experiences on molly and bean at parties, coke hanging out on occasion, crack once ( doesn't last long enough to be worth the money or the feining), smoked spice once did not like it, got stuck on benzos for a month when I couldn't get k, worst withdrawals I've ever experienced, I stay away from that shit. Spent a lot of time cycling with alcohol, when it was at its worst I would cut myself off when I would call out from work or if I couldn't go 24 hours without getting shakey, havent had to do that in over a year, mostly because ive been working a lot and had other goals. Played around with whippet some. I think that covers my past drug use. And I'm a 24 year old cis woman.

How it started, my then bf now husband had found his mom's bubble, fuckin charred on the bottom like someone ad just taken a torch and burned through that bitch, with a lot left in it. He cleaned it, got super super horny, I left work used some flex time so I wouldn't miss the sex crazed window. About a month after that I bought a light gram from a dude ik from the bar who sold mostly heroin. He got too hansy, i could have over powered his short ass but I wanted the crystal so I let him a little before cutting him off. Went home thinking it wasn't worth it, my bf had started to act kinda feiny about it that scared me too. But those regrets and anxiety didn't last long.

First time smoking middle of January:

We started at 10 o'clock I was a little underwhelmed at first, it took about a hour and several hits to get the rush, but I had been having trouble holding it in. Got really horny watched porn and fucked for 17 hours, stopped smoking around 12 hours, at 13 hours I got kinda bored of the porn but was still very horny I was kinda couch locked. Throughout this time I was in and out of the shower we had been using Vaseline we Doordarshed for lube and I was enjoying washing it off and feeling the water, elite showers for sure. I wasn't able to cum by body just kinda got used to the intensity it ended up dulling out but before it did I had the most intense sex of my life. Must have spent hours giving head, got experimental picked up a few new tricks. We talked about porn and different things we like and don't like about it, we got more intimate than we had been and we were already really close and comfortable with each other, been together for 3 years, with a close friendship before that. We were porn locked and at about 2pm on Monday we got a message from his mom his brother that they and his niece was coming over, enter paranoia and panic cleaning mode, there was olvie oil everywhere sex toys everywhere sheets had to be taken care of, but we got it presentable in time. They came through and we someone manged to not get noticed, even was able to force ourselves to eat McDonald's which sucked. They left and the porn came back on and we kept smoking. I stopped at around 5 trying to give myself enough time to be OK to workTuesday. Took a shower at 6 and got the rush again, right back up. By 9 I was coming down and felt too tired to jerk off but too horny to sleep. By 12 he was smoking on the leftovers in the bubble by 3 he was hitting nothing and being a fien. I was just about asleep when he started to have a panic attack because he was coming down and starting to feel his heart rate and blood pressure and some unrelated nerve damage on his arm that has history of triggering panic attacks. So I stayed up with him to do what I could. I had to leave at 9 to go to work, and it was brutal, I was exhausted and sore and headachey and standing up with the blood pressure wasn't fun at all. At around 11 I had done some physical labor which warmed my body up and I got high again but not so much that my pupils were fucky. Made it through that day job in tact and got to sleep that night. Didn't experience any cravings for about 2 weeks after I had recovered from the come down

The high itself surprised me I felt so relaxed, the euphoric rush lasted about 15 mintirs and the high itself went on forever. Once I got past the coming down I immediately started planning to smoke again in 6 months

[idkimnotreal]

anyways before i realized how tumblr is stupid now i wanted to talk about dropping stimulants.

i think i regret using ritalin la for the better part of a year. i was on 4 pills of short release ritalin 10mg/day before my doctor and i agree i should switch to la (extended release). adderall isn’t available in brazil so it’s either that or vyvanse (or concerta, i think it’s also methylphenidate so whatever), and vyvanse is like 1/12 of a minimum wage more expensive (~100 reais or so).

so i can only get vyvanse when i have a job. which is counter intuitive but anyways. i kinda miss when i was taking short release ritalin, despite the hassle of having to take it multiple times a day. i was actually productive and doing stuff i wanted to do, like learn japanese, which i was never able to get back to as soon as i switched to extended (other stuff was going on at the time of the switch so i’m not sure if it’s to blame).

taking stimulants helped make me aware of its effects on my brain, including caffeine (when beforei i wasn’t, i never noticed it) . i type this as i resisted taking a pill of ritalin la today and opted for a cup of coffee instead, which i couldn’t drink in the mornings when i was taking meds (sometimes i did, but i was able to circumvent the habit). and oh boy if i miss it. it makes a world of difference. one day off meds is great, you feel like yourself again and that makes you motivated. but then it’s back to adhd/executive dysfunction normal again, and i’m honestly afraid of some of the effects ritalin la has on me so i genuinely want to drop it. but i also think that not taking stimulants at all is not the way to go. it’s definitely not. it was helping me to achieve a childhood dream (learn japanese) and then just nothing. but it’s definitely to my benefit, i feel. it’s just better when i’m on stimulants.

[kohakuhibiki]

Well, actually those, from what I remember because I was in elementary/middleschool during that annoying decade, well usually they started the day with a black coffee, a pall mall, and half a speed. They did not come with a specific age range, but they had several points in common. Notably, to begin: these ladies gave up on life, but they're in denial. That part justify the outfit and the speed, they usually don't have a diagnostic or anything and they fear the shrink like no tomorrow so they have to find unorthodox methods to sync a similar effect to what prescribable psycho stimulants could give (a la vyvanse or adderall) because. Ah. Second issue: it's never their problem, it's everyone else. Especially these kids they have to handle. Adults do get a reasoning behind her crank. These kids don't. They don't want to pay any interest to her special methods of teaching (over sharing in a way that make it seems like her place in society is to tell everyone her experiences are universal) and they will let it be known. She blames her burn out on reality when it happens, society blame the whole situation on these kids when it happens. None of these kids did learn anything valuable in that class, were tanked, and took the blame. Because what is this really? That's why I sort of started skipping around rather early, these people, these...fucking...people....

[optionalcausality]

Hmm. The entire "I'm sorry" paragraph could have come from my brain if a few details were tweaked.

In my case, the immediate reflexive "I'm sorry" was probably closely related to a far from stable home situation, where any mistake could be disproportionately punished. And periods of neglect (alternating with periods of manipulation and abuse) were just part of life.

The workplace you adapted to might well have encouraged similar coping/survival skills. And, like, living with your mother-in-law might similarly have cemented reflexive de-escalation scripts.

It seems very likely to me that you have a much more positive impact generally on the people around you than you necessarily realize or give yourself credit for. But it makes sense that for you, any mistake seems hugely impactful and potentially job-ending because it used to be that any tiny misstep would result in your old boss doing what he did.

While for most reasonable folks in a business environment, missteps are things that happen sometimes. You recover and go on, generally without grudges/disproportionate blame.

(I'm somewhat better than I used to be re: the negative thought spiral. Therapy and medication were hugely helpful; the prescribed stimulants allowed me to first notice what my thoughts were doing and to identify that my views towards myself seemed a lot harsher than most people's view of themselves would tend to be. It could be that Vyvanse is giving you a bit more bandwidth to observe your thought process and to notice patterns there.)

(You're really cool and I've been following your blog for many years now; I hope tomorrow's meeting goes well and I think having the prepared power point is a brilliant plan.)

Part of the reason that it's a bad idea to stay at bad jobs is that they can really fuck with your head in a way that makes it difficult to work in more functional workplaces.

I made a stupid mistake but I have no idea what the scale of the mistake is. I feel like any misstep I make is a catastrophic failure. I'm upset so frequently that I'm thinking about quitting because I'm useless and it would be less painful than getting fired and that seems to be very far away from what my new coworkers think of me. I am behind on work and the only thing my brain wants to do is sit at my desk and grind in a marathon for like thirty hours until I'm caught up but because this is a functional business I'm pretty sure they'd be horrified if I did that.

I also feel like I'm being haunted by my old boss which is really putting into context how controlling and shitty he was when I'd basically gotten so used to it that I didn't notice that anymore.

[j-edwards]

Where do I start? I just passed 7 whole years since I left an abusive relationship. 7 whole years! Those first 6 years were rough, I'm not going to lie. It's been an uphill battle trying to heal myself, it's something I struggle with on a daily basis, but I'm writing this out to remind myself of the things I've overcome in just shy of a year.

June 25, 2022 Josh and I got married, I'm officially not a Wilson, I'm an Edwards. Changing my name came with a flood of emotions I didn't know how to process. It was incredible to share the last name of a man who truly and unconditionally loves me, but it was also a grief process for me. I did not invite my father to my wedding, and I knew that would be the end of any relationship I shared with him. Changing my name was symbolic of that. Getting married also came with a looming thought that I was now trapped, feelings that my previous relationship brainwashed into me. Seeing my struggles affected my now husband, and I could no longer let that continue. I started therapy, and my god, the help that it brought was so freeing and liberating. I have a session every week, and I see 2 different therapists that help me in very different ways. Recently, I've been diagnosed with ADHD, which I didn't know causes a low level of dopamine in your brain, which comes with a mirad of different symptoms that affect your day to day life. In the last week , I started a new medication, Vyvanse, and the difference is incredible. What I was not aware of is that your brain can be quiet. I've been learning to not supress my emotions, I thought ignoring emotions was a sign of strength, but boy, was I wrong. With vulnerability comes strength, and allowing myself to feel my emotions as they come give me peace, they help me to my end goal.

With the tools I've learned, I'm slowly healing myself and, in turn, healing my marriage. I was under the impression that my struggles were mine to deal with. They only affected me, but that's not true. They affect everyone who cares for me. I've spent years feeling alone, and honestly, for the first time in my life, I feel safe, I feel supported, I feel loved and cherished for WHO I am, not what I can do or bring.

Starting therapy, it's open up a new trauma for me that I never realized. I feel failed not only by my dad but by my mom. I grew up in such an emotionally neglected house that I was never taught how to deal with my emotions, and with ADHD, those emotions come in extreme highs and lows and your dopamine levels rise and fall. Things that parents are supposed to recognize and help with were swept under the rug, and now I'm left to pick up the pieces and heal myself, my inner child and teach myself what should have been taught growing up.

Is it my parents' fault? Maybe, but they are a product of their trauma and environment. I'm working on letting go of resentment, but it's hard not to feel neglected and to want to point blame.

To my husband, Josh, you are the light in my darkness. Without your unconditional love and support, I would not be who or where I am today. You push me, you support me, you see a vaule in me that I had never seen before. You have allowed me to see me how you see me. The gratitude I feel by being your wife, feeling your support is the true meaning of life.

[transpidergwen]

Today was weird and I blame the Vyvanse