#something i am working on in therapy i am bad at apparently with the ADHD

[thealexandriaarchives]

TFW you get a message from a friend you haven't heard from in a few years but your life is insane and you're terrible at keeping up at replying to things while trying to juggle fires, and you look up from a work meeting to see a discord message saying 'i saw your post passive aggressive vaguing about me, I don't have time for people who can't communicate open and honestly', you're already blocked on all channels, and you have to scroll through your Tumblr to figure out what the hell they were possibly referring to until you find this innocuous post you fast reblogged along with 5 others on a caffeine break

Wish there was a better social shorthand for “I’m sure they’re a lovely person in their own way but we are so baseline incompatible that being around them longer than five minutes makes me feel like exploding into smithereens.”

[maylorscardigan]

I love your theories on Taylor’s writing. Do you think the subconscious is also a big thing with Matty? There’s a lot of parallels with their music.

I love how you handled that anon. I don’t know why but I laughed harder than I should’ve

you have an MBA and are working on your Ph.D in psych. That is an interesting combination. Please explain how you came around to doing that.

1. Subconscious is definitely a big thing with all writers so of course that’s the deal with Matty. If we look at the theory of twin flames… this makes that whole thing even more apparent

2. Hahaha. I wrote that pretty much when I woke up before coffee or food so… I am not a morning person. Especially when I don’t sleep well the night before. I blame the adhd lol

3. I’ve been told that more than once.

Psychology is my love. My true love. I grew up in a household with a mentally ill mother, which was made worse with a severe head injury after being hit by a car and who struggled with alcoholism. I also grew up with a covert narcissistic father. I have my own fair share of struggles, naturally, and I am so passionate about the human mind. Especially now that psychology is more about the neuroscience of it all now then it’s ever been. The human mind is a brilliant puzzle.

That being said - I love analyzing things and finding the why to it all. Or explaining music / books etc through psychology. English was my favourite subject growing up and I used to be a good writer so digging into that is so much fun. However - doing something like counselling full time would drain me and my passion for it.

In business - i am incredibly good with it. Need it be management or marketing or operations. Not accounting. I am good at it but it kills my will to live. Psychology is very heavily wrapped into management and marketing. My specialty is consumer behaviour - so sitting back and watching what happened with Taylor and the fans… it’s wild to me and why it irks me that they think taylor is hiding in shame because of the Matty situation. But that’s another story. Back in my MBA schooling days… I actually wrote a thesis about consumer behaviour and the parasocial relationship one has with celebrities. Eminem, boy band culture and Taylor came up a lot in it. As a result of being specialized in marketing, my back ground in psychology - I work in PR as a career and I help run a handful of businesses. I do therapy part time in an online capacity and work with trafficking victims who have escaped from industries like 🌽 AND (and this surprises a lot of people considering I work with sex trafficking victims) with 🌽 addicts. That’s the main focus but I also work with abuse victims who have crossed paths with narcissists, particularly covert narcissists. But as I said before - psychology can be completely exhausting. Without business I would have lost my mind… er I lost that decades ago… okay I would have given it up a long time ago.

It sounds like a lot considering I have a 13 year old in sports and still in school but when it’s balanced out - it’s not actually that bad. I have a good support system which helps a great deal.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Understimulation

One of the more annoying things about getting to know myself better is realising how badly I react to being understimulated. I mean, I’ve always known on some level that I need to be Doing Things, but a lot of times that’s been my desperate attempts to get my head out of the bad place on a far more literal, clinical depression level. Accepting that it’s just probably an ADHD thing is at once liberating and annoying, because it means my brain’s just Like That.

I guess the good thing about self-reflection is that at least it means I know what to do when problems arise as a result. Like, take last night, for instance. It was late, I was tired, I was incredibly hacked off with basically everything, I was stressed to the absolute hilt, and the “try putting food in you; it might help” thing had not worked. I knew that just trying to go to bed would not work. So I played a bit of Dragon Age: Inquisition instead, because Power Wash Simulator and A Little To The Left hadn’t been enough. Apparently I needed something ... at least a bit more than that.

So, understimulation - getting cranky and unreasonable without anything to do. Honestly, I should have figured this one out a long time ago. It’s been a thing since I was a kid. I guess I didn’t largely because it wasn’t a thing that was known about in the mental health sphere (hell, when I was a kid there barely was a mental health sphere of the type we know today) and everything about how I grew up was pretty much geared away from dealing with understimulation to any great degree. Like, I would have done way better with homework had I been able to do it in front of the TV - hell, I did do better with homework when I was doing it with music playing, but it wasn’t quite the same - but my mother was dead set against it and even if she worked late (which was often), I didn’t want to run the risk of her coming home to find me doing my homework in front of the TV and yelling at me. She only barely accepted the music; that was the one compromise we could make. Not sure how I got that one, because when I was younger still, before I could be home on my own, I was having to do homework in an empty office at my mother’s workplace, and there weren’t a lot of opportunities to have music or anything else in an office about half-full of people having to work really late. As for my after-school programme ... there was time set aside for homework but again, not stimulating enough, couldn’t focus.

I guess I figured out somewhere along the line that doing something sufficiently stimulating could make me feel better, because at the worst times of my life, I was grabbing for anything that would help even a little, because the alternative was just not being, and I guess at least some part of me wasn’t ready for that. Which is good, because I would have missed out on a lot if my life had ended back then. Still, I guess that level of desperate clawing doesn’t really give room for a lot of self-reflection, or even looking at exactly how it was helping. Thus I couldn’t necessarily bring it up in therapy afterwards.

Instead, I look at how I live my life now. There’s always something. Of course, there used to be more somethings before the fibromyalgia, and that’s probably why I’m in a less-good place now; some of the things I’d do to help that feeling just make things worse on a different level. I’m struggling to find the balance between “I need to do something stimulating or my head is going to eat itself” and “I have to be careful about my activity level or I won’t be able to do anything for a week”. It’s easier in spring and summer; the weather’s a little better, so I can generally get out a bit more, and I have the gardening. But of course there’s the issue of sometimes the spring not coming as soon as it should because climate change and general meteorological fuckery, which is where I am at the moment. I am itching to plant things but we’re looking at cold snaps and while some of my plants are surviving, seedlings probably wouldn’t. So that’s gardening off the agenda until things improve - or at least until it stops dropping to freezing every night. Obviously there’s been the cooking and associated blog, but on bad pain days, there’s not much to do with that one. (I have plans towards a chicken broccoli pasta bake but it’s been a bad few days and that’s effort I’m struggling to make.) And then there’s video games, which are great but expensive to get new ones and even when the money’s available, I have to curate really carefully to find ones I can play. First-person perspective games still give me migraines unless I’m really careful (I can do things like House Flipper and Fresh Start and Power Wash Simulator, but shooters and the like move too fast for me to manage and the lighting’s also generally a problem), a lot of ARGs exist to be difficult on the combat level so aren’t great for bad pain days, some are made for a controller even if they are on PC and struggling with a bad PC port just fills me with dread, and there are only so many community building sims etc I can play before I’m jonesing for an actual story. The indie market has been my friend, but since people keep insisting that the single-player RPG is somehow dead, even though it REALLY ISN’T, I feel like I’m being pushed out of the entire hobby by my own disability most of the time.

TV’s never been enough. It’s too passive. Part of why I barely watch anymore. I’ll pick up a few things, if I’m interested enough, but mostly I have enough stories in my own head that I’m not going to just sit and passively intake others. I don’t know why books are so different ... except maybe because it means my imagination has to work overtime. That’s probably it. It’s not so much my body that needs to be active (which is probably a good thing because it can’t be anymore, particularly); it’s my brain.

Which, honestly, my brain is garbage and I want a new one. Maybe one that doesn’t automatically set my pain response to “everything hurts” and shuts up once in awhile.

Eh well. Right now I’m going to try to kill this headache (combination stress headache and sinuses; the barometric pressure’s being a bitch today) and deal with combat maps. Hopefull if I do both those things, I’ll have some input into my garbage brain in the form of people I like, and some D&D shenanigans. If not, at least there’s D&D shenanigans tomorrow. ...Honestly, as much as I dislike the commute, at least it got me more brain input. Maybe I should at least try a museum visit during my week off this week. That’s if Tuesday’s phone appointment with the GP doesn’t get me a whole different form of brain input via more invasive tests about the coeliac thing. I’ve typed up enough macros for various biopsies of the gastrointestinal system and seen how many of them had “? coeliac” in the Clinical Details section to be unaware of what’s probably coming next. Hope it goes better than the endoscopy they tried to do on me some years ago. Apparently the sedation didn’t put me under far enough and I still resisted having a camera shoved down my throat to the point where my airway closed along with my oesophagus when they tried. I’m going to love having to explain that to a gastroenterologist...

[msvorderofoperations]

New dream journal. This one woke me up pretty early, not because it was a nightmare per se, but because it was deeply fucking unpleasant.

In it, I'm still living with my parents and my dad is still alive and he is as shitty as he's ever been. He's drinking constantly, being a bully, and refusing to admit any wrongdoing on his part. He ostensibly leaves to go to work so I start telling my mom how this shit is not okay and we shouldn't be letting him get away with this. After confronting her with this, she uncharacteristically actually agrees with me. She is apparently very tired of dealing with his volatile nature and needs a change. While she is explaining how he is failing in ways as a person even I haven't seen my dad reveals that he never actually left.

He then accuses us of conspiring against him and all of the other bullshit he did whenever we confronted him about how terrible he had been. I then outline that he's never actually done anything meaningful to make amends for all of the bad shit he's done. He would always shift blame to us for anything he did (including saying that he drinks because I am an introvert [yes, really. This is something he did in the dream and in real life] and that *we* were the ones that needed to change to accommodate his issues). I point out that myself, my mom, and my sister have had to go on medication for neurodivergency issues (anxiety for my mom, depression for me, ADHD for my sister) and the only thing he "medicates" with is booze. And again, of the four of us he is the only one that has never gone into therapy by himself (which is not technically true in real life, my mom only ever very briefly went to marriage counselling, she's never been in therapy on her own either).

It's at this point that while he doesn't admit any culpability, he starts lessening his aggression. Which, as fucked up as it is, is progress! I start trying to find things we can relate on together so it doesn't feel like I'm just finding fault with him. It turns out he's been playing a video game for many years, but he can't figure out how to beat it. This has never been one of my dad's interests, so I see if I can find something that will help him out. As I'm going through and seeing the various mechanics the game has. It's basically a wave defence first person shooter that has a hard time limit. but in checking out the menus, I see that it has a levelling system that both affects your character's stats, but also how the game functions. And my dad has been doing none of this. So he's accumulated hundreds of levels, but done nothing with them to improve his character or make the game easier (my dreams are not exactly subtle).

As I'm explaining this however, I see that some weird teenaged kid is now in our house listening to what's going on. I try to resume our discussion without divulging any private information because I don't want this stranger being privy to our family history. While this is happening, he keeps moving closer and closer to me. And at one point, he starts licking and biting my arm. I do not know what the fuck is wrong this this kid, but I am not having it. I bodily lift him up, and throw him out a window. It's not high enough to really cause any permanent damage but I want the point to be clear: you are not welcome here, go away. And for all that, I hear hurried footsteps back into the house, and so I pull out a knife (a reasonably sharp tantō I was given as a christmas gift) to protect myself.

This bizarre kid tries to insert himself back into this situation, and I am having none of it. I try holding him off with the knife and tell my mom to call the cops. It's at this point however, that I see that the kid isn't alone. He has with him something that is in the vague suggestion of shape to a dog. It's body is about the size of a french bulldog, but it's head and mouth are easily twice the length of it's torso. It's mouth terminates in a sharp point, and it's mouth is full uneven needle teeth, like an anglerfish or some other deep sea monstrosity. And additionally, the skin on it's face is covered with small eyes, which seem to shift in hue depending on it's emotional state. Seeing that this...thing represents the far more pressing physical threat, I start holding it off instead of the teen.

As my mom is on the line with the cops, everything she explains about why this fucker shouldn't be here, he gives an excuse about why he should be allowed to do it. And before long, he has all but talked his way out of everything. And at this point I start shouting because no, this deranged stranger with pica should not be allowed in our home, especially with this fang-toothed monstrosity. At this, my dad finally pipes up saying that this dog-thing did several hundred dollars of damage to one of his guitars. And then the kid pipe in saying his insurance (which he does not have) should cover it.

All while this is happening, the dog-thing has been pressing closer, and I'm at a loss as to what to do. I have the knife out and I'm making my intentions clear as I can, but at the same time I don't want to actually try and kill this thing. The colour of it's eyes have shifted from blue to red, and I can tell I don't have much time left. I turn to tell my mom to get the cops to hurry, and in that moment of divided attention, I feel it's teeth start biting into me and it's slimy vile tongue run over my scalp.

And that's when I woke up.

[hismercytomyjustice]

Alack, I finished work too late to nap. 😭

Now I play the dangerous game of trying to stay awake while also hoping and praying I don’t get a second wind…

Also my therapist murdered me today. T_T It was a very good session, but DAMN she laid out some truth bombs.

We’re working on some light exposure therapy now on a potential obsession/compulsion we’re trying to verify. Nothing too intense, but it’s my first real time doing it so we’ll see how it goes.

Apparently there’s also ICBT that’s tailored specifically toward folks with autism and OCD, so that’s pretty cool.

I had a formal Autism assessment a few months ago that kind of came back inconclusive. The administrator had been considering the diagnosis but her supervisor said I wasn’t showing Autism signs in enough areas in my life.

The assessor and my therapist both feel there’s a chance that I do have it though. My therapist told me today she felt I checked enough boxes, but she’s not a specialist in Autism.

Part of the difficulty is that ADHD, OCD, and Autism all massively overlap. ESPECIALLY OCD and Autism (see pic below).

So I’ve kind of been in limbo. I have two professionals saying it’s a maybe, but nothing definitive. If I don’t have it, my ADHD and OCD align in such a way that it mimics it pretty well.

The thing is, I’ve been told I’m REALLY good at masking by my therapist. I also score really high for masking on assessments. I think if I’d done this assessment in high school, there’s a chance I would’ve gotten the diagnosis without any doubts involved. But am I ADHD masking, Autism masking, or both?

Was I just an anxious, socially awkward kid who only needed practice interacting with people? Or did I just learn to mask/camouflage?

My therapist said she’s going to look more into what indicates autism vs OCD, but it’s not an easy thing to do. Folks are often misdiagnosed because of how similar they can be.

She also suggested we create my own venn diagram like the above with my personal experiences/traits to see if we can tease more of it all out into the open.

I’m kind of a late diagnosed OCD and ADHD person. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months trying to better understand what I can attribute to ADHD, OCD, both, or neither so I can be mentally healthier and develop strategies accordingly.

I am really excited about the therapy homework she’s given me on this front because there’s a chance my need to verify whether or not I have Autism is being caused by my OCD. It’s a vicious cycle of “I’m pretty confident I have it and I have multiple professionals telling me it’s a possibility” to “I don’t want to accidentally co-opt something that isn’t true and be one of those mental illness/disorder/etc fakers” and around and around we go!

Thankfully it’s not leading to full blown distressing thoughts or anything. It’s more just frustrating/annoying not knowing for sure.

And the thing is, there’s a lot of healthy coping techniques that can suddenly become unhealthy if the OCD gets ahold of them. It’s normal to look for reassurance or to want answers for something like this. It can just be a fine line to walk.

My therapist told me today that one of the difficult things about OCD is that the obsessions have a hint of truth to them. Like, it’s very important to me not to claim something I don’t have because I know how fucked up that can be and how it makes it harder for people who actually do have it to get the help they need. That is a true statement. But am I just trying to be aware of that and to respect the community? Or am I working myself into an OCD loop over whether or not I’m a bad person if I could be mistaken that I have Autism?

I was talking to her too about how helpful it’s been to work through this stuff via journaling. I journal off and on, but doing it on tumblr makes it easier to not overthink it or expect too much of myself.

I feel like I’ve been learning a lot about myself though, so I’m glad for that.

Now back to trying to stay awake…

[lululawrence]

Can u please be nicer on ao3? Maybe you should try answering people's comments

when i read the first line i was honestly flabbergasted and wracking my brain trying to figure out when in the world i wasn't nice on ao3 ever. because i honestly truly try to be nice to everyone always, even when i'm angry or frustrated or people are going after those i love and want to protect. if there was a time i WASN'T nice on ao3, i wondered if it was maybe because my comment had been misunderstood or someone saw me razzing an author i'm good friends with and they didn't get that we are close and i said what i did with so much love and appreciation, you know? like what??? did i do???

but then i read your second line. and please forgive me if i come off as rude in my response to this, because honestly i'm in a pretty bad spot mentally and emotionally in general right now, but PARTICULARLY today, and this ask triggered an anxiety response in me. so. i'm trying really hard to word this in a way to educate without being condescending or mean, but i might not succeed.

firstly, thank you for your comments i'm assuming you've left. i'm also assuming they were nice comments, in which case extra thanks. i'm sure i'll send you effusive responses on ao3 when the time comes.

secondly, please understand that sending an ask like this, on anonymous no less, is incredibly entitled. writing is not my profession, i receive no compensation for my works that i post for free online, and as a part of that it is not required of me to respond. i do my very best to reply to every comment i receive, but it is not always in a timely manner, because i have other priorities in my life. all of which leads us to my third point, which is:

writers do not owe you a reply to your comments. end of. there are no other qualifications or quantifying modifiers to be added to the statement. is it nice to be acknowledged and know your comment was seen? sure. but do they OWE you one? hell no.

in fact, i'd like to offer you a suggestion. a way of tweaking your thinking about the comments you leave on fics. instead of looking at comments you leave as being something that deserves a reply from the author, think of your comments as your way of paying the author for the gift of their time and talents that they have shared with you by posting their fic. that's how i think of the comments i leave for authors. i'm giving them my thanks for the words they've shared! i want to help THEM feel as amazing as they have made ME feel when i read their fic. in fact, my hope isn't necessarily a response from them, but instead my hope is THE GIFT OF THEM SHARING MORE FIC WITH ME. i'm a selfish bitch in that way and i always want all the fic to read. i never want that well to go dry. one way i can ensure that doesn't happen is by supporting authors and being kind to them and spreading all the love and excitement i can about their writing in the hopes that my words will inspire them to share more.

because whether they reply or not, i GUARANTEE they are seeing your comments. i PROMISE they are. and for all you know, your comment might be the one that keeps them writing even when their words aren't coming easily or when they are tempted to give up.

but, again, please remember that no matter what, these authors (including me) don't actually owe you anything.

the rest of this is going under a cut, because honestly my reply is already far too long and i have a LOT more to say now that you've gotten me started.

now, all of this in mind, i'll explain to you why i'm not great with keeping up with comments made on my fics the last couple of years. i don't owe you this explanation any more than i owe you a response to your comments, and i'm honestly not sure you deserve this explanation either, but i'll still offer it anyway. it'll help me feel better knowing i at least put this out there, whether you care or not, mainly because if i don't do that it will cause me greater anxiety having you possibly think i am not responding to people because i feel all high and mighty or that i think i'm better than the comments or whatever the fuck kind of motivation you're attributing to me to see my lack of a response as something "not nice" towards the commenters.

i'm not sure if you've noticed, but i put out a lot of fic. like a lot. a lot of words and shit. i love writing, it's often my therapy and a way for me to help keep my anxiety and depression and ptsd at bay.

now, more personal shit for you, i've got three kids ages 9 and under. the oldest has adhd which we have yet to find a med for that helps to the extent she needs without side effects that aren't healthy for her to continue with, she also has anxiety, AND she's extremely gifted and starting a new program at a new school, all in the midst of a pandemic. and all of those situations exacerbate her anxiety! huzzah! she's also dealing with the beginning of her tween growing up shit, which is great fun because it means where she used to be pretty damn understanding of her younger brother, she is finding it much more difficult to. because the second oldest? he's autistic with some pretty significant gross motor, speech, and socialization delays that have only been exacerbated because of the previously mentioned pandemic. PLUS he transitioned from his special needs preschool to a fully integrated elementary school for kindergarten last year and then had to deal with all the ups and downs of the switch from e-learning to hybrid to all in schooling when everything in him screams for a normal schedule he can rely on to keep his own anxieties and fears and struggles at their minimum. and that youngest child? he was born in january of last year. he STILL barely leaves the house and has only met other children in close range a couple of times because, once again, pandemic!

add onto all of this my own mental health issues, the fact that my husband ALSO battles major clinical depression, adhd, and anxiety, AND we live with my parents who have their own health issues, both mental and physical. i run the home for our house of seven. i keep this place functioning, fed, clothed, clean, and everywhere we need to be for all of our five million appointments every. fucking. day. there is a REASON i've been borderline burnt out for the last fucking year and a half.

now, for fun, i have fandom shit. i love it here, even if it is a dumpster fire on the best of days, and getting to be a part of the writing community is so very lovely. i adore it. honestly, it's because of those friendships i've built with other writers that i have been able to keep writing and have found just how helpful it can be for my mental health. but i'm REALLY. INCREDIBLY. BUSY. i hardly have time to get on tumblr for just a quick swipe through my dash most days. i put off asks so long i forget i have them. i don't have the mental and emotional capacity to talk to people on here or interact fully a lot of the time. but i do my best to do so and be kind while i'm at it even when i don't want to be.

then, on top of that? i also run fic fests like @wordplayfics and help friends run their own. because not only am i a writer, i'm a reader. i LOVE fic. fic has saved me soooooo many times over the past seven years that i've been here. i want to do what i can to support other writers the best way i can, which is to provide a space for them to create their works that welcomes and helps promote them, but also by doing my monthly fic lists and pocast highlighting what i've been able to read, reblogging their fic posts, and then commenting and kudosing their fics too.

sometimes i get really fucking down on myself because i'm so behind on replying to comments, but my brain is very much a "if you start this, you have to finish it" kind of a brain, and i feel even WORSE sometimes if i reply to comments on some fics and not all of them. but i do my best and reply when i can. i was actually really fucking proud of myself because i had a couple days to myself in june, and i spent hours replying to comments on 20 of my fics. when you have almost 150 fics (i think? i don't even know how many fics i've posted by now), that is only scratching the surface. but i tried and i was so so happy i did that many fics at once. it's exhausting, though, and takes a lot of spoons for me to reply to them in mass like that plus time consuming. so i tried to be happy with those 20 fics and the comments i responded to there and told myself that when i ha a moment to breathe, i'd go and work on replying to some more.

but see, that again causes anxiety and guilt. because i haven't replied to all of them. and that anxiety and guilt can cause me to put it off further OR to put off important things like feeding my children or getting sleep in order to finish it, so i have to make myself put things into perspective and ensure i'm doing the important things, like taking care of myself and my family, first.

and then, i have a moment where i CAN go ahead and reply to comments... but i also have MANY fics that are on deadline and i actually have a schedule. a SCHEDULE. for when i'm going to focus on which fics. i can spell it out for you if you really want. i made it back in APRIL to make sure i didn't sign up for too many fic fests because there are so many going on right now that i want to participate in, but i know i can't do all of them so i had to pick and choose. and when you are SO overscheduled and busy that back in APRIL you had to figure out what fics you would focus on at what time to ensure you got everything written when you wanted to through THE END OF THE YEAR, more choices have to be made.

for example. my writing time and time for myself came down to only one evening a week for ALL fandom things i'm doing and a part of right now once the kids were out of school for the summer. it quickly became apparent that for my own self care i needed more time, so i worked with my husband to find two other days i could carve out at least 30-60 minutes to myself to write every week. and i did. but if i'm already only getting that much time and have committed to those fics and fests and things that you're running etc, you have to choose am i going to use this time to try to squeeze in some comment replies? or am i going to write? and i choose to write. simple as that.

so yeah. see it as selfish if you want. see it as mean. you can honestly see it as whatever the fuck you want, but for me? i know that as soon as i possibly can and i can breathe freely for once and not feel like i am constantly drowning in my day to day life and am doing pretty well when it comes to my fic deadlines and getting started on those christmas cards i'm once again going to be making by hand for everyone on tumblr who chooses to sign up for one this year out of the KINDNESS of my heart and the love i really do feel for so many of you, then i promise i'll be on ao3 catching up and commenting. my friends laugh and make fun of me for it sometimes, because they will sometimes get 10-12 replies to their comments in a single day. they know that's how i work. i WILL reply to every single comment i get, no matter how old it is. but for the love of all that is holy, do NOT add to the anxiety and guilt i already feel over it. the only place that will get you is the ask/comment getting deleted if it's a good day, a fucking long rant like this one if it's not, and a block if it's a REALLY bad day.

if you're asking me to be nice on ao3, then i ask in return that you also be nice by not demanding things of people that they are not in any way obligated to give.

[knotmagickstudios]

ADHD/Autism diagnosis as an adult, part 1

So this is a bit of a departure from my usual content, but I wanted to break down some of my experiences here so that others could learn more about the process and how it works, and what struggles I faced.

Please remember, this is just one person's experience, and yours might be very different depending on your healthcare provider, country you are seeking care in, or even what part of the country. I know my experiences would have been very different if I'd tried to get an assessment back in Ohio vs Washington state.

A little background: I grew up in an emotionally abusive household that placed a lot of stigma on mental health and not being neurotypical. I've had anxiety since I was 3 and depression since I was 10 or 11, but was unable to get help until I was almost 30 because of that stigma.

As a result, I grew up with some hardcore masking, and trying to be as "normal" as possible. I think I was tested for autism several times in elementary school, but because I'd been conditioned to know the "right" answers, I told the teachers what they wanted to hear, not what I actually felt or thought, so I "passed."

About 5 years ago, all of my coping mechanisms for my anxiety and depression stopped working at the same time, for no apparent reason, and I made the decision to begin taking medication. It's one of the best choices I've ever made.

Around that same time, I was also diagnosed with hypothyroidism, and later Hashimotos (autoimmune condition attacking the thyroid).

During all of this, I moved 3,000 miles to a new state.

The Hashimotos has caused a great deal of fatigue for me, which is how I got diagnosed in the first place. Even with my medication, I still am tired all the time, and I'm usually ready for a nap. However, it also causes insomnia, so I will often go to bed and then lay there for 2-3 hours before I can fall asleep, even if I'm super tired.

This past year has been very bad. My anxiety also spiked for the first time since I started meds, to the point I was having panic attacks at work. I started talk therapy to help determine if the problem was the crappy job or if my meds needed adjustment. It also became clear through these conversations that something wasn't right physically, so I went to my GP.

I am not going to lie when I say I hit the lottery with this GP. I laid out all of my symptoms, which are, theoretically, tied to my Hashimoto's: Fatigue, intolerance of physical activity, inability to regulate my body temperature, random joint/muscle aches, headaches, and a whole laundry list of other symptoms.

She wrote everything down, and then shocked the pants off me when she said, "This doesn't sound like Hashimoto's to me. It sounds like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and ADHD."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I know a lot of people in many places in the world with ME/CFS and usually doctors avoid mentioning that as a diagnosis unless they have to. To have it, and ADHD suggested as a possibility from the get go was shocking.

I walked away with a list of referrals to specialists, including neuropsychology for both an autism and ADHD assessment.

I'm going to end part one here, since this was a lot of background. I'll be focusing on the ADHD/Autism assessments, but if anyone has questions about Hashimoto's, the chronic fatigue diagnosis, or any of the other conditions I've mentioned here and how they were treated, I would be happy to elaborate.

[moonfurthetemmie]

shout out to my mom for being so mf supportive of dying my hair and being the first one in my family in a couple of generations at least to do something other than nursing and military and for being so accepting when I started exploring my gender and sexuality and stuff and also being kind of confused by the concept of polyamory but going ‘well whatever as long as you’re all safe and happy’ and also doing her best to help with my ADHD despite me being a stubborn little shit and still letting me come sleep in her room if my brain decides it’s time to be afraid of the dark again which was very RUDE, Brain

She had to retire early bc of health issues and she didn’t deal with it well, but I had no idea how bad bc she never told me. I knew intellectually that it must suck for her, but she never unloaded that onto me and went to a therapist instead. Even tho at the time we lived with my grandparents (her parents) and Grandpa was really insensitive about it, bc he’s from a generation where getting therapy was Bad and people would be like “I heard they went to…therapy”, and she still never tried to use her kid as free therapy

And she still lives with them and she’s at least doing better in that regard, but it still sucks for her because she doesn’t want to have to sit around all day. But she’s gotten into fanfic (which was really funny to find out bc apparently my brain decided that either adults would already be into fanfic or would never get into it) and she’s joined a discord server of other fanfic people and she’s having so much fun

And she’s adopted several of the queer people in the server, which is most of them, just bc of how supportive and open she is. I think there’s at least one person roughly her age in the server, but I think they’re still some of the oldest there, so she’s just. Obtained more little queer children. And she moms them if they’re not taking care of themselves, like the one person who’d just gotten a job and hadn’t eaten since they got off work and was so tired they couldn’t see their hot bars on the screen and wanted to keep playing anyway

She mixes up pronouns sometimes, but it’s never intentional and she corrects herself quickly, and always uses preferred names (like with me. I don’t know if trans and occasionally my brain brings up question marks regarding gender, but I do have a preferred name and a deadname. And she makes sure to use the preferred name) and if she ever messes up names I haven’t heard it. Other than a couple of times when I first changed my name, at least, but that’s understandable. It takes a little bit for it to settle in.

She was never mad when I said I wanted to go by my preferred name, or that I think I’m queer, she just was like ‘ok. Is that all? You were so nervous coming in I thought something was wrong’

After the initial talk though she was like “oh, wait, am I supposed to make this difficult?” And jokingly was like ‘how dare you be anything other than cishetwhatever in my house!!’ And then went back seriousness and asked if I wanted to tell my grandparents anything

just. shout out to my mom. I love you

[corvixa]

I am alive! Long, rambly post ahead.

So. I did a thing. After 2 or 3 years on a waiting list of therapy, I got it. Good right? Ahuh...

A weekly appointment at 10.30 am is apparently my kryptonite.

It was fine at first, but I got utterly sidelined with the cumulative effect and the fact I wasn't able to reset my energy. But, I was determined like, I'd breakthrough.

Uh. That did not happen. All I could do was attend that appointment. For the first time since I started writing again post house explosion, I couldn't even write. I managed to not some ideas down. Carry on a few plots in my head. Still, even with my insomnia, I was stuck with my facemask on, desperately trying to get enough energy to eat, and occasionally failing even that.

After I had to take a break for a few weeks running for dental appointments and Covid Vaccines, I gained enough energy back to do that look around and reflect thing.

Hell, I might not have been perfect before this, but I enjoyed things. I chatted with friends. I lurked in the Stark Tower discord plotting new ideas. I got to write. I got to do real-world hobbies. I got to spend time awake with my partners!

So, after my vaccine and several days with a very high fever, I kind of decided. Fuck it. This isn't worth it. I have clawed my little part of this world out, and I am not going to lose it.

Sometimes you have to weigh up the cost-benefit analysis. What good may come from these 16 appointments was utterly stopper by the bomb dropped on my life. So I came out of my fever cave of blankets, had an incredibly hot bath and decided this wasn't working.

The early appointment alone was killing me; I am crepuscular by nature. Not being sarcastic there; this is how I have dealt with severe levels of insomnia since age 12. I tried being an average human that wakes up in the morning and goes to bed at night for decades, and it didn't work. I am most active after 11 pm, and I nap during the day. It's not a perfect fix; if it were, the Gold series would literally not exist as that is my Insomnia in a cape. However, sleeping at least once in a 24 hour period nearly every day is THE WIN. Being not awake at 10.30 am, but already at an appointment, where I was expected to be coherent? Weekly? With no variable illnesses? Even the stint in hospital I had was around me making these appointments... Not getting better from fall.

Honestly, I have no idea what past me was thinking, but after they went to 2 or 3 appointments and didn't feel too bad, they committed hard to this course of action. That was a mistake that I thought I had learned a long time ago, that assessing the work-life balance is critical. This might not be work, but it was the same thing.

So, How am I doing? Better. Not aces, but the Covid fever of doom made me miss last weeks appointment. The week before, it was the Covid.2 Jab and today I had the dentist.

And this morning, before my dental appointment, I started writing. My partners were over the moon. I am not back on full capacitor yet, but I am clawing my way back. Heck, I felt alive enough to prat about in the garden as my partner wanted to take a few pics of me given my pairing of BRIGHT TOXIC GREEN tights and lace trousers. I realised I hadn't set foot in the garden since this therapy thing started. My dog, Loki, was bouncing around like a loon bringing me every stashed ball he could find.

If anything gives you clarity, it's the excitement of a collie confronted with man balls, your partner's joy at you starting something you love again and actually feeling like a human being.

Ness is calling the therapy people when she gets the social confidence points required to deal with bombing me out of this whilst being my stalwart wall, so I don't get bullied onto the phone (hello, Hemiplegic Migraine) or guilted back into just trying a few more sessions.

It's not like my therapist was bad. He was cool. He dealt with this ADHD, Autistic, Severe Insomniac, Asexual weirdo and never once questioned any of these identifiers. I just don't have the energy to do anything back to back, week after week, at 10.30 am—even fun things.

So, I am probably going to sleep a lot. I am not back to my previous form yet; my Hubs is saying I made it out of the cave, but I still have Palladium Poisoning because apparently, I have infected his brain to think of things in Iron Man metaphors.

This is a bit all over, but I felt like I wanted to get it down. Especially for anyone worried about my sudden absence.

TLDR, the road to hell is lined with good intentions; sometimes the good thing becomes the bad thing, sometimes you lose yourself trying to do things the right way, and everything ends up wrong. Sometimes the right thing is the thing people see as wrong. All I know is that I wrote something for the first time this morning because of insomnia, and I couldn't be happier. My mind is starting to pick up speed again, this dense dog of confusion, exhaustion and pain is clearing, and I have goals.

Which I think is what really matters, right?

Oh, side note, some things did get done whilst I was busy being a zombie. After nearly 3 decades of waiting, at 33 (yeah, I've wanted to change my name a long ass time.) I got my name changed! So I can sign this off in a way that makes me smile. I dropped my old first name, and took my first middle name as my new forname. (I was, and still am, one of those ginormous name people.) I also went back in history and timestoned my surname. (So, I was named utterly after my dad. Literally, I have the female version of his name >.< but I wanted to keep that connection to my genealogy whilst not having my dads name.) Boom.

Enjoy the earlier mentioned pictures of me pratting about in the garden. I am a photographer. I do not know how to pose. What you are seeing is sarcasm 😅. (If you want to know where the fabulous tights came from, Google Snag Tights. They are truly a miracle and a gift from the Gods. They have actual sizes and don't tear after one wear, even if you are more leg than human. So you stretch and destroy tights by walking.)

- Morgan / M-Mac-C

[bonsaisheep]

My experience starting ADHD meds (for the first time) as an adult:

So I started ADHD meds recently. I contacted my doctor in early December, and spent the next month or so trying to figure out the right medication and dosage via basically weekly doctor’s appointments (online). Since there was a lot I found out after starting the meds that are apparently common experiences, I figure it might help to talk about my experience with all of this.

So I am medicated for my ADHD for the first time in my life at 27. There were two attempts when I was a kid, but neither of them worked out. The first when I was in fourth grade (I was diagnosed somewhere between first and third grade, I can’t quite remember), it was decided the side effects were not worth it, and a second attempt in middle school, but I refused to take it since I bought into a lot of the BS around brain meds. Its only in the last few years as I have learned more about ADHD have I learned exactly how it is effecting me. I managed to do well enough in high school to get into a good college (after doing really poorly in jr high). Managed to get an engineering degree (in 4 years with research, I was hella burnt out by the end of that) and managed to get (and hold) a job as an engineer shortly after college. Basically, since I could at lest fake functional and manage well enough (mostly because I was taught a ton of coping mechanisms by my parents as a kid), I just, never realized how much it effects me. I have been living an interesting and fulfilling life (as long as you ignore my mail bathtub).

After learning more and realizing that it was my ADHD was the source of a lot of the frustrations and struggles (I am basically a human checklist of the symptoms), I started to consider medication. The biggest reason for me is that I wanted to be able to focus on my own hobbies. I am incapable of hyper-fixating on anything that involves sitting down (or like, in general I am really bad at sitting down). I put off doing anything about if for years because well... executive dysfunction is a thing. It is really because of my roomate I finally went through with getting on mediation. This summer I moved in with a couple of close friends, one of which is also a cis women with ADHD who was diagnosed in elementary school. After not being interested in medication herself for most of her life, she recently decided to pursue it after some long conversations with another of our roomate’s girlfriend (I am one of 7 people in my friend group with diagnosed ADHD). Basically it was an accountability thing. We both held each other accountable for contacting our doctors.

Ok so after that very long introduction, what exactly are my experiences then? One of the things that surprised me was that I didn’t really run into too many barriers regarding getting on meds. In my case, I just talked to my general practitioner and she was like cool, lets start with XYZ. She actually didn’t want my original diagnosis since it was so old that she felt like any proposed plan would be out of date. (This is compared to my roommate who had to get a copy of her original diagnosis and even then her doctor was mostly comfortable prescribing meds because she is in talk therapy). (Though she has also pointed out I have been seeing my doctor for a bit now and therefor have a repor with her compared to her own doctor who was basically randomly assigned to her by her insurance and she met for the first time (online) when she contacted him to discuss meds)

I was originally prescribed Wellbutrin, a common off lable option for ADHD (it is a non stimulant, and by extension less bad side effects). My doctor wanted to go with it due to my really bad anxiety since it could potentially help with both. Unfortunately it made my anxiety way worse and I had a panic attack for the first time in years so we quickly stopped it and switched to other options. The next thing we tried (which is what I am now on) was extended release adderall. This is the most common stimulant prescribed to adults with ADHD. From what my doctor was saying, it is preferred for adults since it lasts all day (and with pretty even effects), it helps cover both work and the evening since most adults have additional responsibilities in the evening. In my case, due to how I responded to the Wellbutrin she also wanted to make sure I was on something that would not spike my dopamine. When messing with the dosage, I found that the amount that seems to help is also the amount that make my insomnia worse, so I am take a slightly lower dosage of the extended release, and make up the small difference using the short release.

Regarding side effects, the two noticeable ones that did not go away after a week (I initially had problems with a high heart rate, but that went away after a few days) are thirst and hunger suppressant. There is not much I can do about constantly being thirsty other then drink a ton of water. I was able to talk to a friend about the hunger thing, so I was able to implement quite a few tips and tricks that help me eat something during the day.

The two odd side effects I was not expecting is that caffeine actually effects me now and I also have way less of a sweet tooth. My doctor warned me about the caffeine thing, and my coffee drinking has really gone down. I went from at least two cups a day to a mug of half caff in the morning (I can’t cut it out entirely due to withdraw symptoms (so you know addition)). Regarding the sweets, I don’t know if I crave sugur less, or if it is improved impulse control. A good portion of my impulse control issue revolve around food so I am unsure.

Also I am running into a thing a friend was telling me about. The meds help you focus end of statement. This means you can end up focusing on things you don’t want to be focusing on.

As for the positives, well, I guess I was expecting more. I knew that meds weren’t some magic bullet and I was still going to need to use all of my coping mechanisms, but I guess I thought that the focus issues, would, just go away. But this is not how meds work. The way my roommate’s girlfriend describes it is that it gives you 15% more spoons, and that makes a ton of difference (for some people, this can be the difference between stuff like being able to hold a job). It is also really hard to tell if your meds are working. I texted a friend asking about how to tell, and he basically told me that it was the million dollar question (meaning there is no clean answer). Honestly, I still don’t know for sure if they are working or if I am just saying that. Part of it is that i literally can’t remember what I act like or feel when I am not on meds (and if I take a break for a day, vice versa). I am currently going with the assumption they are though.

For me, what I have been finding is that while I still get distracted from tasks I don’t like, I return to them faster. So rather then getting bored, getting on my phone and like, fucking around for a long time. I might just briefly check social media and then return to my task (meaning I get more done faster). I have also found it is making the executive dysfunction way easier for me. It is still difficult to start tasks, but, it takes distinctly less energy to do so meaning I generally start tasks sooner, or in some cases, do them at all to begin with. It helps curb some of my impulse control issues, mostly around stuff like food and impulse purchases of going out for lunch or coffee. It might be helping with the emotional dysregulation, but I have a hard time gauging that one. It’s just making things a bit easier, and well, that goes a long way.

More importantly, I am achieving my original goal. I am more able to focus on my hobbies and interest. I am starting to return to robotics, and it is already going better then when I tried it out as a teenager. I don’t know how well this will work out in the long run, but I am cautiously optimistic.

TLDR: I am not quite sure how to summarize, but if you know people on ADHD meds and are considering them (or are otherwise not on them and want to know more), it is probably worthwhile to have a conversation about them.

[werevulvi]

Hi, could you tell me more about your autism and diagnosis and how you deal with it, how old you were diagnosed

I don't know a lot about my autism, tbh, as I never bothered to read up on it and I was never properly informed on it. But what I do know is that I learned slowly as a kid, learned to walk at age 3, was very clumsy (like medically abnormally clumsy physically, could barely run at all and couldn't climb, etc) required special treatment to learn how to eat as a toddler because I hated the sensory experience of solid food and chewing, I was incapable of understanding sarcasm, interpreted everything literally, I was stimming a lot, had monotone body language and speech, etc. I was very obviously "different" according to my parents already from around age 1 or 2, and required literally constant attention for the first 4 years of my life. Started daycare at age 4, in small groups.

Then as I started school at age 6, apparently the school nurse had told my parents that I'm probably autistic, so I consider that my "inofficial diagnosis" but they decided to ignore that and didn't tell me (until 10 years later.) I was bullied in school for being "the weird kid" by both classmates and teachers who thought I was a retard and annoying, basically, I guess. I was called a freak and weirdo a lot. But like I was proudly a weirdo, and resented normativity.

As I got up into ages 10-12 my depression and DID symptoms (alter) kinda took over and became more prominent than my autism symptoms, as I wasn't as physically clumsy anymore and started learning social cues. My mental health continued to decline over the next few years, until I sought out therapy on my own at age 16. It led me to doing my first few suicide attempts, which led me to ending up at a closed psychiatric ward.

While staying there for a few weeks, I got evaluated for autism (without knowing that's what I was tested for) as well as a few physical things, such as my hearing impairment and chronic headache. And those tests led to an official Asperger Syndrome diagnosis, when I was 16, by the very end of year 2005. I also got diagnosed with borderline psychosis and mild depression, and got pumped full of anti-depressants and anti-psychotic (neuroleptic) drugs. Then my mom finally told me that she basically always knew about my autism, and I was really pissed at her for not having told me before. I resented my autism diagnosis right from the start, and the older I got, the more I resented it. Never identified with it, only ever saw it as a huge burden.

Then throughout the rest of my teens, I went to a school for neurodivergent people (basically upper high school) but still flunked it. I was a complete and utter mess, and got little to no actual therapy. They just kept shoving me around from one psychiatric department to another, due to my comorbid issues, no one could help me, it seemed. Every once in a while I'd make another half assed suicide attempt to make them take me seriously, which only worked for a few months at a time. In total, I've made 19 suicide attemps over 12 years. Oh lord, psychiatry was so bad!

Adulthood came along and I got benefitted with sickness compensation, and got my first apartment at age 20. It didn't go great. I accidentally flooded it and had to move out, and didn't manage to keep it clean or anything while I lived there. I was barely functional and alcoholic, constantly self-harming, just to try to manage attending school. Despite getting help from caretakers offered by the state (?) weekly, I was really dysfunctional. I switched apartments several times, and kept flunking school while trying to live my miserable life, always hanging by a thread. Until I moved back to my parents at age 23. They had moved to a miserable island far away from all my friends. Got an apartment on that island close to my parents, but my issues continued being the same level of awful, up until about age 27.

What this has to do with my autism is that... uh, I basically understand it as that it impedes on my executive function really dramatically, and like although I can physically do pretty much anything, mentally I just somehow can't. Especially repeatedly, and often enough. Like I can't keep any routine for the life of me, not even simple shit like sleep cycle, eating habits, brushing my teeth, etc. Let alone school or a job, or even hobbies. Everything is infrequent and too seldom, if at all. So everything in my life keeps falling apart as I basically have no foundation to stand on, and I get sensory overload suuuuper easily. So like just going shopping/cleaning/laundry/hobbies/school/anything for half an hour can drain me significantly and make me incapable of managing doing anything else for the rest of that entire day. It's very hard for me to explain, but it's like I only ever have 3 spoons per day, but most things requitre 10+ spoons, so I go backwards on my energy resources a lot and end up having to rest for DAYS after just one hour's activity.

At age 27 I ditched the social service caretakers, as they were seriously depriving me of my privacy while being largely unhelpful, and I began to finally try to pull myself together. I still get a lot of help from my mom, with anything from paying my bills and grocery shopping, to driving me places and dealing with soul-sucking authorities for me. This takes off a lot of the burden and allows me to manage doing at least a few things on my own, like working out, cleaning (yay I manage keeping my apartment clean nowadays!), laundry, occasional shopping, art projects, online socialising, etc. I still go to therapy biweekly but it's still largely unhelpful. At least I managed to make them stop tossing me around between departments like a football though, and I'm still gonna try to get some proper trauma therapy, and maybe also look into that adhd group I was promised last year, if it'll ever resume again post-corona...

I've still never had a job in my life and still have incomplete grades. But I got permanent sickness compensation now, so that's neat. At least I don't have to worry financially. I'm also trying to get started with some "work training" stuff which is basically "pretend work" for people who can't work, just to have something to do. I'll most likely be granted acces to that. However, it seems irony is that most of those are located out in the middle of nowhere where no buses go, and I can't afford a fucking car or driver's licence because I can't work. Mom probably won't drive me several times a week for that. Fucking fantastic. Makes me almost wanna kill someone... argh! Those little things really piss me off.

Life is absolutely not going the way I want and I blame my autism for it, mostly. I am drowning in frustration, and my anger issues making me scream my lungs out in pure despair, shows that. I'm considered offically disabled due to my autism, and it just fucking sucks ass. How lonely, under-stimulated yet easily over-stimulated, bored, meaningless and unfulfilled my life is. There are far more severely autistic people out there who somehow manage to live far more functional lives, and I'm jealous of that. I dunno how to break free from this misery. It feels like the only thing I've ever managed to accomplish in life is transitioning genders, and making art that I don't wanna sell. I wanna have a "normal" job, a car and driver's licence, I wanna have cats and a social life, I want parties at night clubs again, I want hobbies outside of my home; hookups, friends and lovers; I want to be able to have a functional romantic life with someone I can marry and start a family with.

But is any of that ever gonna happen? I hope so, but it feels bleak. Because my autism feels like such a huge burden on my life, and a huge hindrence to my dreams and goals... like I'm over 30 already and still a disabled and having my mom living half my life for me, miserable mess and not given any useful therapy, I'm left to my own vices to figure out how to adult... Because of all that, I hate my autism and I wish there was a cure, I swear to fuck. So for your question, how I deal with it: not fantastically. Not sure if you wanted a relay of my entire life, but I hope that’s okay! Didn’t know how else to answer your questions.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Disordered Eating

Yes, I know food is important.

Yes, I know that calories are necessary if one wants to live.

However.

Right at this precise moment, it is only hyperfocusing past the absolute fucking bullshit I am living in right now with video games that is keeping me from wanting to scream and punch a wall until my hand breaks or the wall does. And that kind of interferes with the whole concept of “preparing and consuming food”.

See, as a kid, I got a lot of body shaming from my mother. Her constant rallying cry was, “You’re not hungry; you’re just bored”. You hear that often enough, you start being unable to tell the difference between ‘hungry’ and ‘bored’, and as a consequence, ‘not bored’ immediately equals ‘not hungry’ until what was actually hunger all along becomes ‘too nauseous and headachy from lack of food to actually eat’. Thus, hyperfocus as a mental health aid to try to avoid my brain eating itself over government-sponsored messes that I can’t change immediately puts my appetite on the back burner until I can’t focus through that crappy feeling you get when your blood sugar tanks.

Not to mention the fact that ... look, it’s pretty fucking obvious to me that I have ADHD at this point. No, I haven’t been diagnosed; it wasn’t a thing when I was a kid, people didn’t understand how easy it is to mistake for BPD when I was in therapy, and while I could probably get it diagnosed now, I don’t trust this country’s mental healthcare system right now - not because it doesn’t try, but because it’s underfunded and everybody’s looking for the easy answer. Plus I’m actively worried they’d try to fix it with medication. I know it sounds weird - “Why wouldn’t you want a mental health issue fixed?” ...Because every single coping mechanism I had to build for myself relies on knowing my symptoms and using them to my advantage, is why. I have neuropathic pain like migraines and fibromyalgia, and can’t even think straight? Hyperfocus on something that doesn’t require too much brainpower until the painkillers kick in. I can deal with budgeting only because when my impulsivity comes out to play and demands I Buy The Things, I unleash my executive dysfunction and let it second-guess the impulse to death or at least give me the arguments I need to make an informed decision on the matter. I don’t know what I’d do without that balance. As precarious and draining as it sounds, it’s what I can live with.

Anyway, point is that because of the body-shaming as a kid, I learned to set hyperfocus and executive dysfunction against impulsivity when it comes to food. I don’t think the balance I strike in other walks of life is so good there. I am working on it; I keep dried fruit on hand so that if it gets really bad, I can just throw a box of raisins into my face and let that fuel me into a rational decision about my food choices. Again, I know it sounds weird, but it’s twofold - the break for the raisins breaks up my hyperfocus, and when I’m inevitably still hungry after the raisins, then I can prove to my executive dysfunction that the desire to eat a thing wasn’t just an impulsive fit after all, and thus it backs off.

(Also add to that being shamed about comfort-eating to the point where being even a little bit depressed means I’m not supposed to eat anything because of the training about “You’re not hungry; you’re just...” whatever. Of course, being overly hungry just adds to the bad mood, so that’s all an entire mess. My eating is usually fairly okay but sometimes is way too fucking disordered.)

So all of this to say that I guess I should start thinking about dinner. Currently my options are roast chicken leg or tuna broccoli lemon pasta. It’s probably going to be the pasta because it doesn’t take very long to cook. Best to get the eating done while I still have the impulse and it’s winning out over the other coping mechanisms. Apparently it’s all about which bits of probably-ADHD-related bullshit I turn the volume up on at any given time, which I guess I should thank my old Theatre Studies A-level teacher for, though he taught us to do that with emotional states in general because he was teaching by the Stanislavsky System (which precedes method acting and is rather a lot less weird).

I know I have issues. I guess harnessing them to approximate normal is probably as good as I’m going to get, at least for now. I don’t want to have to try balancing my mental state while I’m also still trying to deal with my nervous system deciding it’s just going to scream pain signals at me all the time.

[arrivalation]

2020: An Account

This year has been a nonstop, off-the-rails bullet train ride into what looked at first like chaos, but ultimately was a tearing down and reconstruction of my entire being. Because I know myself and I know I won’t remember much of this later, I’m recording it here. It’s hard to put some of this information out, but the universe regularly urges me to be more open. So here I go.

January

I got married.

It was, without contest, the absolute best day of my life. I’ve known since I was real little that I wanted to be married, that I wanted to be loved the way M loves me and to love someone just as much. I don’t know how to explain the feeling of having achieved that, and being able to share that with my entire circle. @abyssalsun​ made it down!! (my only regret is that @ladyoriza​ couldn’t make it, but I’m still so glad we got to make it to theirs). As often as I can, I revisit the memory of going to @chromecutie​’s house afterward, thinking it’d just be the four of us there, and opening the door to find a whole impromptu surprise party happening. Everyone cheered for us when we came in. I played CAH with Mordred, my brother and his wife, and several friends from out of town. By all accounts, these people would never have been in the same room together, but they were, and it was transcendent. It’s been almost a year, and I still haven’t recovered from all the planning and stress; but now that I’m past it, I can say with relief that it was 100% worth it.

February

We bought a house.

Up until this point, I’d been planning a wedding, participating in house-buying stuff as best I could, interviewing for a job I ended up not taking, and dealing with life-long mental illness that was festering and reaching critical mass. But then stuff started wrapping up. The wedding happened. The house was ours. We moved in. I could finally fucking breathe. LMAO bitch you thought.

March

The pandemic reached us.

I guess by this point it had probably already been in the US for a couple months, idr. But it wasn’t until March that things really started happening. People started dying in droves. New cases spread like wildfire. I remember thinking that this would be the zombie apocalypse, because at this point, I don’t think the CDC knew much about the virus. In my anxious mind, that was a completely reasonable assumption. My boss had us all start working from home. We all thought it’d be just a couple weeks.

April

I settled into working from home.

It didn’t take me long to get used to it, maybe a week. I hadn’t yet gotten used to my new hour-long commute from the new house to work, and so working from home quickly became my new normal. But I didn’t know yet why working from home was so good for me. All I knew was that I now had the brain-space to process things. I had the energy to do yoga and cook and do hobbies, and the time to appreciate and care for the home I lived in. I could think more clearly because there was no one else around to distract me. There was sunlight I could bask in. I felt human for once, and that became vitally important and infinitely valuable to me. Despite that, I still struggled with extreme anxiety, panic attacks, and some of the worst depression I’ve suffered through since I was a teenager. Outside my house, everything was a fucking mess and no one had their shit together.

May

I went back to the office for a few weeks.

There was a lull in pandemic activity. My boss had us all start coming back to the office again. At this point, I couldn’t make heads or tails of reality anymore. Everything was changing, nothing was stable. I desperately needed to stay working from home, because that was the one thing that felt Good and Right, but I had no real argument other than, 'I just need to.' So imagine me, at this point a soggy, run-over sloppy joe, attempting to return to normal. As you might think, it was... bad. I cried and hurt all the time. I think I really freaked out my boss with the way I reacted to coming back to the office. But then the second wave hit, and we all went back to working from home again.

June

Uncle Mike died on the first day of the month.

My uncle had been sick for a while, but no one was expecting him to die so suddenly. None of us were ready for it.

I also died that day.

It might sound dramatic, but I mean it quite literally and honestly. Over the years, I had gained suspicion that I was on the autism spectrum. M graciously found me a psychiatrist that took my insurance (and happened to be right next door). I wasn’t even going in for that - I was seeking treatment for my anxiety and depression. But I had amassed a (very long) list of my symptoms, and I brought it with me and read it to my doctor. I wasn’t even a quarter of the way through the list when he stopped me. I’m paraphrasing here, but in effect, he said, “No, yeah, you’re definitely autistic.”

I remember the way my body felt. Like someone had detonated a bundle of TNT in my chest, and I was burning from the inside out. At the time, I didn’t realize this emotional immolation was purposeful and executed by the universe to get rid of this old structure and build a newer, better, stronger one. For about fifteen seconds after he said that, I was relieved that it had been that easy, that there was an explanation for everything that my ADHD didn’t explain. It made a ton of sense why my environment was so important to me. And then I felt something unnameable. It was obvious to my doctor that I was autistic. Had it been obvious to everyone else? Why hadn’t it been obvious to me? I read the rest of my symptoms to him in a daze. I don’t remember how the rest of the appointment went.

And then I burned quietly and ungracefully until I was a pile of ashes. I didn’t know this at the time, but apparently it’s common for newly-diagnosed autistic people to have such dramatic and painful reactions, especially if they weren’t well-informed on the condition. Which I wasn’t.

I started therapy.

I also started learning about my “flavor” of autism. It was arduous, embarrassing, isolating, and ugly. I became aware that I had been masking my whole life, and I was astounded by just how often I did so. What really crushed me was knowing that I’d always have to mask to protect myself. I also became hyper-aware of the things that made me Feel Bad. Inexplicably, I stopped being able to react to those things the way I used to. Previously, if something made a loud and unexpected sound, I would suppress my reaction, because it’s not cool to get mad about it. But I found I couldn’t do that anymore. I had no choice but to react the way I needed to react. I realize now that this was to make me aware of what things make me feel a certain way so I can either avoid them or learn better tools to deal with them.

The therapist I saw wasn’t specialized in autism, and she wasn’t any help in that area, but she did teach me some important things. Like, “Is it reasonable for me to feel ____?”

July

Black hole.

I don’t remember a whole lot from this month, except sifting my own ashes through my fingers and crying. Every day brought a new revelation, a new thing that clicked. All of it was helpful and very painful. My psychiatrist recommended medication, but I’d had a bad and long-lasting experience with medication as a teenager, so I suffered through the pain on my own.

I shouldn’t have. I got so low I didn’t want to be alive anymore. But I think it took reaching the bottom and feeling that much pain for me to get over my fear of pharmaceuticals. 

I got into astrology.

I had been interested in it for most of my life, but it wasn’t until this point that I started studying it in depth. I discovered it was a language that I could use to translate so many things about my own life that I didn’t understand. It was a rulebook in a time when I desperately needed rules - but one just flexible enough that it taught me how to stop thinking in binary.

August

I got medicated.

There was a big adjustment period, of course. It didn’t cure me. But it did start to make things easier. And it helped to know that, even if I didn’t believe it at the time, I deserved to rest. I deserved not to feel so much emotional pain all the time.

I turned 30.

It was easily the second best day of my life. I learned a lot of important things, like that it’s important to be present, that I’m seen and loved (just the way I am!!), and that I deserve good things. M planned a whole day of surprises:

I woke up at my leisure and we had coffee on the couch. He got me a cute card with one of our inside jokes inside - I still have it.

We went to our favorite combination lunch place and bakery, which I believe was our first real outing since the pandemic started.

We stopped by a tattoo place. I almost got a tattoo.

He set me loose in Texas Art Supply.

We got dim sum for dinner.

We had a lovely virtual cocktail hour with @chromecutie.

He bought me an ipad!!

I became Spiritual™.

I had been agnostic for the past decade or so, slowly and subtly slipping into nihilism, without realizing how detrimental those ideas were to me. I’m not sure what I thought spirituality was before, but I wasn’t into it. I had always rolled my eyes at people who talked about “a higher power”, auras, and spirit guides, until I became that person.

My psychiatrist introduced some powerful ideas to me, ones that meshed well with my previously-existing idea of how the universe worked. I won’t get into details here. That’s a whole other post. Ask me though - I’d love to talk about it.

Anyway, I started (intermittently) meditating. I learned some exceptionally powerful stuff. I felt my scaffolding being erected.

September

I started learning who I am and why I am this way.

I started seeing a new therapist. She thinks like me. She follows my erratic, forking trains of thought. She sees me and offers real, actionable feedback and solutions. Working with her, I’ve gained the ability to see my life from a 30,000-foot view. I can see now why I’ve felt so lonely my whole life. I understand how my family’s dysfunction has shaped me. I know now that I have the opposite of a victim complex - by default, I believe I am so awful that I feel sorry for everyone who has to deal with me. Because that’s what I was taught to believe. Learning that I deserve to take up space, set boundaries, say no, and be wrong sometimes is still a hard lesson for me. But most days, I believe it now. It takes other people believing it and convincing me. I still need that reassurance often.

My parents sold my childhood home.

Mentally, emotionally, I still lived there. I was still the inverted victim, still beholden to my stepdad’s whims and my mom’s complete cognitive dissonance. This was a blinking neon sign from the universe that it was time to move out. My mom told me when the closing date was so I’d have time to drive down and look at the house one last time. I didn’t go, and I still don’t regret it.

I started learning my boundaries.

After my spiritual move-out, I learned I don’t have to jump when my stepdad holds out the little circus hoop. When he otherwise shows zero interest in my life but still baits me with passive-aggressive texts, I don’t have to answer!! What a concept! I don’t have to feel guilty for not talking to my mom more than I do. We have very little in common, and I still have a lot of things to work through regarding her.

I learned how not to be so reactive.

Or rather, I’m still learning. Something else I learned in therapy is that over the course of my life, I’ve developed a desperate need to defend myself and to justify every action or thought I have, even to myself. It’d been especially troubling at work. My RSD led me to felt stupid, incompetent, and unseen daily; if my boss complimented someone, I believed it also meant he thought I was stupid and bad and wrong, otherwise he would have complimented me too. If my boss said something that even remotely sounded like I’d done something wrong, I’d race to build an impenetrable defense: “This is the reason I did that. Here’s my line of thinking. Do you understand? Can you please understand?”

Now I know that so little of what everything everyone says or does at work is about me. I can appreciate a coworker’s accomplishment and also realize it doesn’t take away anything from me. I’m not stupid or incompetent, and I’m a valuable part of the team. A lot of times, my boss and I are on two different wavelengths - that’s because I think a lot faster, which can be frustrating for him sometimes. He doesn’t fully understand me, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong.

October

I let go of an old friend.

This was especially hard, because I had known this person for years. We’d gone through a lot together, and we’d shared some really important and emotional story plots and characters. I had agonized over whether I was truly important to her or not. It didn’t matter how much I loved her as a friend, or how badly I wanted us to be close again and remain close. I had learned to read the universe’s signs, and it was clear it was time to move on.

November

The election happened.

I was expecting things to turn out badly, but I still hoped for something good. And then something good did happen. I cried watching Harris’ speech. I felt a tenuous hope that things might finally start looking up, societally. I still haven’t really let myself fully embrace that hope, but every time I see a court shoot down another lawsuit, or hear about trump’s own conservative republican supporters tell him, “Okay, buddy, it’s time to step down,” I feel a little better. 

M and I went non-monogamous.

There’s so much I want to say about this, but it’s for another post. Suffice it to say that like every other experience this year, it has been unexpectedly challenging and ultimately a catalyst for  priceless growth. I’m unfathomably grateful that we’re doing this together, for the things we’ve learned so far, and for how much closer this experience has made us, even when I didn’t think we could get any closer. 

Turns out I’m not gray-ace.

I had identified as such for a couple years, which was why we wanted to try non-monogamy in the first place. On the surface, it perfectly explained my sexual personality. But every time I told someone my identity, I felt inexplicably sad. When I read about others having “normal” sex drives and “normal” relations with their spouses, I felt jealous.

Turns out I’m just traumatized, lol. Walking along this non-mono path has unearthed a lot of things, including this gem.

December

This was our first married christmas in our new house.

One of the handful of good things the pandemic has done for me was allowing me to back up my boundaries with hard evidence. It’s been difficult dealing with my stepdad bullying me about not coming over for thanksgiving, and having my mom subtly guilt me into making plans for next year already. But what I needed this year was a quiet holiday, instead of the usual weeks-long chaos, and I got it. And it was fucking delightful. I’ve dreamed of days exactly like that one - spending a tranquil morning with my spouse, sipping coffee and listening to music and eating treats. Deciding exactly how we want our holidays to be, because we deserve to.

I’m scared of what’s to come in the new year. I’m still an anxious mess, and some days I’m not strong enough to pull myself out of the spirals I throw myself into. I’ve gotten used to the pandemic holding my hand, allowing me to shelter in my home, helping me enforce my boundaries, teaching me who I am. When it’s over, I don’t know what will happen or how I’ll react or what I’ll learn next. I’m not finished rebuilding, but I don’t think that’s the point. I’ll never be fully rebuilt. But at least I’m figuring out the new layout.

[myysty2345]

This is the first time I've written anything in 16 months. I guess you could say COVID really took it out of me. I haven't felt like writing, which is something I've always done to express myself. If I'm honest, I feel like the pandemic has taken that away from me. Maybe if I write down how I've been altered, what I've struggled with, I'll move past it. Or start to, at any rate.

Working during the pandemic has made me feel unsafe in a place where I usually feel safest. I have depended on my job as a source of validation, acceptance and feelings of achievement for most of my adult life. It's the place I have always been considered competent, dependable, essential if you will. The place where I feel the most pride and sense of accomplishment. My safe place has been under attack for over a year. The environment I normally could control to a degree has become completely random, unpredictable and traumatic. I survived this, and I suppose that's something. I know I need to move on from my retail job. I'm building an exit strategy and I'm exploring options for therapy.

Apparently I'm not moving fast enough to suit the people who care for me. Nor am I able to explain to them in a way I'm understood that I can't take just any help or any form of therapy. I've been diagnosed with ADHD since I was nine. I was a part of control groups and research studies and multiple therapists mishandled my care, under or over medicated me, told me I was borderline retarded, honestly the list is longer than I have time for. Just any therapist is not going to help me and could hurt my mental health for years. And I feel like I'm being pushed to make a decision too fast to benefit everyone but me. I feel like I'm having the control taken from me, the choice taken from me. Again.

I used to not even admit I wasn't okay. I pretended to be, masked my symptoms and tried to be what I perceived people wanted me to be. I built heavy walls and armor even against people who I trusted because I knew that the real me wasn't socially acceptable or worthy. It took me years to break those walls down, to peek out from behind them and show my authentic, real self. And now I just desperately want them back so I don't have to feel this hurt and internalized rejection when I'm told to get help. Like, I said I wasn't okay. And my loved ones can't even understand how huge a step that was. So how can I make them understand that pushing me into therapy before I am ready will just toss me back behind those walls and into that armor and I might never get out again?

How can I get them to understand if every time I try to express myself I get told I'm too emotional or combative or deflecting? Like, I'm trying to tell you how I feel and you're telling me I'm irrational when I already know I feel irrational, what's the point of opening up if I can't express myself fully? Then make me feel defective by pushing therapy at me like it's an ultimatum for friendship. For being loved.

I just got home and went another round with my Aunt. Who was the only one who actually made me feel like she wanted me to get help for me. Who told me she loved me first. Who told me I deserved help. Who reminded me of who I am without all this bullshit in my way. And yeah, no one can break me down and get to the really hard shit with me like she can.

I know I need help. I know I'm not okay. I just wish I'd been allowed to make the decision on my own. Just once, I wanted to be able to control my own self care. I feel like I never get to do anything important on my own. I feel like I'm being treated like the borderline retarded person those bad therapists said I was. Like I don't deserve the kindness of normal people and should be grateful to be handled. Managed. Controlled. I know that's not logical or what's actually happening. I also know feeling that way is a clear sign of needing the help everyone is pushing me into.

I'm tired. I'm just so tired of hating myself. It's been 40 years now and I'm sick of me. At this point I'll try anything to just feel okay again.

[ms-demeanor]

I appreciate your positivity posts a lot, but there are a couple things that make me instinctively angry when i see them One, it really frustrates me that i cannot be good at everything. I know it may sound kinda stupid, but i feel jealous when i see people learning skills i know I'll never master cause they arent a priority over other skills im already working on Two, when im angry/frustrated and i see positivity, it only makes me angrier None of this is your fault, just needed to vent a little

(This post requires a table of contents)

Frustration that you can’t be good at everything - A

Frustration with positivity - B

Do I contradict myself? Kinda but not really - C

Ah-ha, but I have fooled us all - D

A

That doesn’t sound stupid at all, it actually sounds exactly like the insta-rage that I get from being bad at something or from hearing “anybody can do X.”

I know that sounds contradictory, considering that I’ve been saying “anybody can learn artistic skills with practice,” but I’ll explain in a sec.

Okay so I’m learning guitar right? Like, with all the hand-pain and dyspraxia and all I’m still giving it a go and it’s taking forever and it’s really frustrating.

It’s more frustrating because I realized I had to do it alone - if I’m practicing around people or a person is sitting next to me while I’m trying to learn a skill or get the fretting of a particular chord down or (especially this one) trying to memorize a sequence of notes and movements it’s. It’s extremely not pretty. It’s apparently very upsetting for the people who are around me when that happens.

I get furious with myself and I get frustrated because goddamnit fucking children can do this thing and I’m an adult and it’s a simple fucking sequence of five movements and I’m just getting it wrong because I’m a useless idiot.

It takes about four minutes with a guitar teacher or jamming with a friend for me to devolve into “attempt sequence > fuck sequence up > apologize > try again but now while more mad at myself > fuck it up worse > apologize > forget beginning of sequence > try really hard not to start calling myself a fucking idiot in front of a friend who really shouldn’t have to handle this.”

And when I do that it feels terrible. It feels bad, feels like my skills have regressed, makes me want to put the instrument down and not pick it up again.

The thing is, I do this with every skill that I’m learning. You should see me when I’m trying to learn a new version of some kind of software. It’s terrible. I’m at my absolute worst and lowest when I’m trying to find the new place Adobe has hidden a menu or what the new command is to format something in Word.

But here’s the deal: I know what this is when I’m doing it. This is emotional dysregulation.

Basically finding out that I have ADHD changed my life and got me to really start examining a lot of my reactions to things and the behavior patterns I’ve lived with for most of my life.

I experience an impulse to be furious when people are more skilled than I am, I AM furious when I feel like my skills aren’t where I think they should be. But neither of those things are actually good for helping me learn to do the thing and I’d much rather learn to do the thing than be angry about not being good enough at it.

I spend a fair amount of time in therapy. I have worked on recognizing when I have the impulse to do something that is going to be unhelpful or reactive and attempting to approach that impulse with other options.

That’s not easy! And it doesn’t come naturally! My first response to a lot of things is still anger or frustration or despair.

But since I *know* that’s my first impulse and I’ve learned enough about my own behavior to understand that my first impulse is frequently the wrong course of action (grounded in panic or whatever) I’ve been working on accepting that my first reaction is typically negative and moving on more quickly to other, more helpful reactions.

(this has been really fantastic for increasing my feelings of agency and control over my own life; acting on your panic response all the time isn’t good for your long term stability)

You know you can’t be good at everything, you know that it takes a long time to acquire skills. That doesn’t make it any less frustrating that you don’t have the skills that you want to have. So it’s understandable that your first reaction to the skills positivity posts would be negative, and it’s understandable if you want to sit in that negativity for a little bit.

It’s also understandable to mourn the skills that you could have had. “If I hadn’t stopped practicing guitar in my teens I could be so much better now.” “If I hadn’t had to get a job with such a long commute I could be drawing daily and I’d be so much farther along.” “If I hadn’t been discouraged by my parents I’d have had so much more practice with music.” “If I hadn’t gotten injured I’d be such a good dancer right now.”

There’s a perfect you that lives in your head and they’ve had all the opportunities you missed and got to keep practicing when you couldn’t and have all the money you don’t and sleep you keep missing. I get wanting to be that person. I get wanting what they want.

But the you in your head isn’t real and it’s sad if you’re ignoring how wonderful the real you is because you’re not perfect in the same ways.

So if you can, I’d recommend trying to see if there’s a positive response you can practice remembering when you get frustrated about your skills.

(for me it’s honestly just saying “the next best time to plant a tree is today” and remembering that I’ve got a long time to learn to do all the things I want to do. It’s not a race, and if I can’t get to something now I can try later.)

You’re great. You’re great and you’re trying hard and if you wouldn’t yell at your friend for not learning a skill or being good at something you shouldn’t yell at yourself either.

B

So when I was like, 17, I wrote a bit of poetry that went like this:

I’m a casual cynicwho prays for optimistsbut it’s hard for me to be onewhen I’m talking with my fists.

I am a very, very negative, pessimistic person. Optimism and positivity irritate the hell out of me.

The frustrating thing about positivity is that it largely feels like criticism. It feels like “if you can’t do X, Y, or Z it’s because you choose not to.”

And I sure as fuck can’t blame people for being negative. I’m negative and the world is shitty and everything is difficult and expensive. I really, really don’t think that people are choosing not to do what they want to do.

So when you hear “you can do it!” it’s a very natural response to go “yeah, easy for you to say, you don’t have a million things preventing you from doing it.”

Part of this is that your brain is a filthy liar and it thinks that skills are easy to acquire. Your brain is going “if anyone can do it and I haven’t it’s because I’m lazy and I suck.”

I would like you to remind your brain that it is a filthy liar.

(I would also like to remind people that negativity that exists to the point that generic positivity posts upset you or make you angry is a symptom of depression)

But the other thing is that you probably DO have a million legitimate things that are keeping you from Doing The Thing and when you’re seeing someone else say “Do the thing!” you’re just seeing the shiny thing, not their million things that were in the way too.

Doing shit is HARD. It’s exhausting. It involves opportunity cost. If I want to make fanart I have do dedicate time to that that gets taken away from somewhere else and you know what sometimes it’s just better for me and more in line with my desires to re-read a 100k slow-burn than it is to make a drawing of the characters.

But it’s also really important to recognize which kinds of positivity actually contain criticism.

My initial statement in the Gru comic was “Talent is bullshit, nurture your skills with practice & make the content you want to see in the world.” This was in reaction to a simply-drawn comic that expressed that you need talent to make fanart and not everybody has talent.

A lot of people have seen that as criticism.

I am. Really, really not attempting to criticize people with these posts.

But also, yeah, being told “woah, hey, just calm down” when you’re already pissed isn’t going to make anyone’s afternoon any better. And there’s not much I can do about that (and I know you don’t want me to, you said you were just venting).

C

“You hate positivity and yet you make positivity posts, interesting.”

So the brand of positivity posts I hate are the “If I can do it anyone can!” posts and here’s why:

Not everyone can be on a Roller Derby team.

Breaking my back and having to quit roller derby made me reassess a lot of my attitudes about the world.

If you point to a specific activity and say “if I can do this anyone can do this” you are wrong. There are a lot of people who aren’t going to be able to do a thing. If you say “If I can lose the babyweight within three weeks of giving birth anyone can” there are a lot of people who can’t do that thing and there is a kind of implicit criticism there. “If I can get over my scoliosis and lift weights anyone can,” is kind of saying that the people with scoliosis who can’t lift weights just aren’t making an effort.

“If I can do this anyone can” is wrong. It ignores the fact that people are all in unique circumstances and have different limitations. No, not anyone can. Not everyone can be on a Roller Derby team.

But what I’m saying in my posts isn’t “anyone can draw” it is “if you practice a skill you will improve at it, so if you want to improve at drawing you need to practice.”

And I’ve been very clear in admitting that not everyone can do this, due to time constraints and low energy and physical limitations.

The one deviation I’ve made from that is to come pretty close to saying “anyone can do art” and again, I consider that a bit different because “art” is a very broad category and I do believe that pretty much anyone can create things that I would consider art, even if that art isn’t traditional visual media. And again, any of those kinds of art would also improve with practice.

D

The joke was on all of us all along, by the way. While I’m being pretty positive about the idea of practice and the fact that it will improve people’s performance at all skill levels there’s a secret:

That Gru post isn’t so much positive about practice as it is *incredibly* negative about the concept of talent.

Talent IS bullshit. There is a variable range of innate abilities that people can have that may jump-start a particular skill but proficiency in that skill is always going to be down to practice, not talent.

Talent was made up as a cover to explain the “brilliance” of people who had armies of laborers supporting them. I bet I’d be able to invent a lot of shit if I didn’t have to do laundry or worry about whether I was going to be able to afford both food and rent next month. Talent is a myth that pairs nicely with great man theory in that it is crap and I want people to understand that sucking at things for a long time is a part of not sucking at things eventually and also that you’re going to get a lot more done working with a group of motivated people than you are if you wait for one “talented genius” to change the world.

[yay-depression]

hi hello, i would kind of just like to rant about being in the category of “you don’t have adhd but you don’t not have adhd”

and to preface this: i typically say i have adhd bc it is the only way i can

get ppl to take my symptoms and modifications seriously

explain my problems to ppl without having to go into the rabbit hole that i’m about to go into

so, now that thats out of the way, let’s begin:

i was diagnosed with severe generalized anxiety disorder when i was six. it’s a pretty useless diagnosis (in my opinion) bc it’s kinda just like “you have a lot of everything and u just have normal person anxiety but like worse” the clusters i had when i was diagnosed were:

panic disorder

phobias

OCD

social anxiety disorder

and generalized anxiety disorder

i never had separation anxiety and back then no one brought up PTSD so, that’s where that list ends. essentially this caused a shit ton of symptoms all of which were absolutely awful and very disabling. my anxiety is so severe that it’s classified as a mental disability, which is uncommon.

one of the things about having severe anxiety is that it causes a bunch of symptoms that people don’t associate with anxiety.

there was a point where doctors thought i was having seizures, but it was just my anxiety.

i experienced psychosis (and still occasionally do) which was a result of my anxiety (now more likely a result of my depression but who tf knows tbh)

as of now i no longer have phobias but i still have all the other clusters.

all of my anxiety symptoms are pretty well managed to the point where my teachers and peers are actually shocked when they hear i have anxiety at all. (it’s the fact that i’m on a shit ton of meds and i’ve been in therapy for a decade, trust me I didn’t just grow out of it)

my anxiety is also so severe that it causes problems with executive functioning.

I have absolutely no concept of time, none whatsoever, which is something ppl say like “oh haha yeah i have no concept of time either” but they can still be like “oh don’t worry you were only gone like five minutes” literally you could leave me in a room for five minutes or five hours and it fucking feels the same.

i have a very difficult time remembering things, i have to set at least three alarms for something or i will forget it is happening. i have a routine, any time that routine is broken or something, it’s really hard to get to the thing that breaks the routine or even remember that the thing exists.

i need my brain to be stimulated at all times. any moment without at least mild stimulation feels like actual hell. i can’t fall asleep in silence bc the period of time in between being awake and falling asleep is so torturous for me that i’ll have meltdowns over it.

also i have periods where i’m like “if there is any sound other than the one i am focusing on i will kill everyone.” which makes school a real joy /s

i have very particular touch stimulation problems?? some textures make me tic, thinking about some textures will actually make me tic, sometimes i can’t touch stuff but then the day after i want to roll in it.

i have no idea what step comes where when getting ready to leave someplace. i literally made flash cards with my therapist bc i have such a problem getting ready for things. i don’t know what to do at the 15 minute mark without my flash cards, or the 10 minute mark, or the 1 minute mark.

part of needing to be stimulated all the time; i can follow five things at once (unless one of them is reading in which case i need white noise and nothing else or i will scream). i constantly have three or more things that i am doing and having only one thing happening is so goddamn difficult it makes me cry occasionally.

i hyperfocus sometimes, it hasn’t happened in a bit but i did have a time where i spent two straight days studying nuclear energy. i spent like three months study forensic psychology at a college level for some fucking reason. i spent a solid few months of my life where i was pouring all of my time into serial killers and their cases. i memorized an entire band’s discography in one day. i memorized hundreds of facts about another band months later. it’s kind of a problem, i lose sleep over it and i put off school work and social activities because i can’t get it out of my head.

sometimes just vibes from a room will make me want to explode. i’ll get sensory overload from there being no sensory?? like i’ll walk in a room and be fine, and then walk in another room where almost nothing has changed and suddenly i’m about to rip my head off.

this (and other reasons) led me to asking my psychiatrist if i could get an adhd screening. he said yes, i have yet to send some of the paperwork to my teachers i’m sorry. but according to my mom’s account i do not meet the requirements for having adhd. now, there’s a whole other rant i could go on about how that’s a faulty way to diagnose stuff but we’re not gonna do that.

my psychiatrist did however say that it’s very complicated because my anxiety is so bad that it has symptoms that look like adhd and he’s not sure if they are or not. i also have clinical depression which causes symptoms of adhd as well. i’m also apparently on two adhd meds already (which i was unaware of when asking for the test) and that complicates the results even more.

anyways rant over. basically i have adhd but i don’t but i do but we’re not sure and i rly just want my brain to be normal bc i’m sick of not being able to do things.