Overthinking It.

my brain is broke, and starting over is hard. I hope that by putting my experiences and coping strategies out there, I can maybe help someone else like me. at the very least, know that none of us are alone ❤️ nonbinary/Aro-Ace ADHD/depression/anxiety/trauma

[0verthinking1t]

Ngl pretty proud of this weird little ENAsona guy I drew in an hour and a half with school supplies while at work to escape from the daily terrors of living in the US. He's based off a Picasso painting I found called Arlequin.

[0verthinking1t]

A severe case of The Wiggles

Good morning ADHDblr, I was today years old (29 and a half, a full 3 decades I have not known this) when I realized something important. Context first tho, let me define The Wiggles:

A case of The Wiggles: also known as "brain Zoomies", simply "Zoomies", etc. A temporary state where your brain and body respond to fatigue by becoming uncomfortably hyperactive and stimulation seeking. One who experiences The Wiggles may experience things like jitteriness, irritability, anxiety/stress, mood swings, physical discomfort, feeling like they're stuck on fast-forward and can't slow down their thoughts or actions, feeling like they need something important but nothing around them is the right thing, fast-paced and compulsive fidgeting, intrusive impulses and thoughts, inability to sustain focus on one thing at a time.... You get it. All the hallmarks of the ADHD experience, happening very loudly, all at once. To an outside eye, it may look like the person is super alert and hyper, or like they're being overstimulated and overwhelmed, but it's usually the exact opposite— our brains run out of energy to work on being good and productive, and our muscles get restless and tight from lack of exercise, so we start going haywire from being both burnt out and understimulated.

For example, many ADHD children start getting The Wiggles later in their school day and have trouble sitting through later classes, but having a substantial amount of recess time halfway and an extracurricular activity of their choice gives them the relief they need to make it through everything comfortably. As another, personal example, I'm especially prone to the wiggles early in the morning. It takes me a long time to shake off sleep inertia, especially if I have to wake up to an alarm, so I can get stuck in limbo for an hour or two. my brain is having trouble making the chemical shift to alertness, so my thoughts, feelings, needs, and responses are all an unreliable mess— fortunately, once I find the right activity or topic of interest to anchor to (like a walk outside, a snack with a strong flavor, a weird texture to rub, or even reading a random spam email) everything starts slotting into place all at once, and the wiggles start to ease off.

Ok, accidentally long explanation over. The very important thing I realized..... Is that The Wiggles..... Aren't the symptom itself. Just like hunger is the body signalling a need for fuel that's not being met, or shivering is the body signalling a need for warmth that's not being met, The Wiggles are a signal from the brain and body that a need is not being met— an intense need to stim. No holding in, no being discreet, no masking, just grabbing the nearest bumpy texture, clicking object, or piece of string and going to town on that repetitive action. It's grounding, it's focusing, and the little pleasure of doing it helps nudge the dopamine process back to work.

[billciipher]

Click on it twice. These are your two super powers.

[joyceanfartboner-deactivated202]

everyone else always seems to fucking get cool shit and i always get like “gel manipulation” and “using dust along w/ your fighting style”

[outoflamps]

I AM THE SICKEST MOTHERFUCKER ON THE PLANET

[0verthinking1t]

Fucking sweet, multiple lives, aaand.... video generation? Hmm....

Oooh hell yea, I'm picturing a gritty future/cyberpunk, maniacally laughing supervillain with blue hair, rockstar makeup, and impractically dangerous-looking boots who's completely insane and irredeemably evil for the fun of it. Their entire power set and theme are digital/tech based with lots of screens of all sizes— they can take over and fully manipulate any digital device sentient posession-style, and they travel by spreading to nearby devices like a wifi computer virus. Every time they jump to a new device, they leave a trail of hivemind type clones, and they can transfer their original self back to any them at will— essentially giving the villain as many extra lives as they have devices under their control. Destroying an infected device destroys the individual clone, but destroying the device housing the original copy erases all the clones at once and restores the rest of the infected tech to normal (except for any that got smashed). They're campy and flashy, and can't resist playing with their hero and victims like a cat with a mouse, which is why the hero is able to outsmart them and foil their grand schemes at the last second every single time 😛 villain and their hero have been battling for the fate of the city for so long at this point, they get coffee together on their days off.

[0verthinking1t]

Spacing out vs. dissociation

So... there's a relatively recent trend of defining a common ADHD symptom that's developed into a pet peeve for me, and I itch to talk about it every time I come across it. I want to share how I've come to understand my own moments of dissociation and zone out, because for me, they've never been one and the same. I worry that the ADHD community using these terms interchangeably will cause problems down the line for my friends out there who experience more severe forms than I do, and I can't help but want to clear things up.

Zoning out/spacing out: this is when my brain is walking along on its path, minding its business, when it starts to wander off to pick flowers and climb trees. It's daydreaming, or monologuing, planning my grocery list, or complaining to myself— I'm still doing something, but it doesn't relate to what's outwardly in front of me. When I zone out, I'm still aware of my surroundings and reality. If someone calls my name or sits down in front of me, I notice and come back to where I'm supposed to be focusing. I'm still doing things like drinking a latte or looking for cars at a crosswalk, and sensory stimuli like temperature and smells and visual changes still register to me. I can daydream about my D&D character's adventures while I'm waiting for a bus in the snow, and still be shivering and watching the road. Spacing out, for me, is wandering off focus-wise, but still present in my body and surroundings.

Dissociation: dissociation can manifest in different subcategories, and the one I experience most often is depersonalization/derealization. It often happens the day after an unmanaged anxiety attack, or when I spend a long time in an emotionally uncomfortable environment. I can feel, physically, like my blood is made of air or sand and my body is a balloon that could drift off at any minute. Other times, I feel that everything I see is just a giant wrap-around TV screen, and I'm in some sort of VR game. Sometimes my emotions kind of shut off and I feel like a robot or a doll, or like I'm being led around on an invisible leash. When I dissociate, whether or not I can focus on tasks or my surroundings is never a factor of the equation— it has to do with my perception of reality, my body, and the world around me. These states aren't something I can be snapped out of or called back from; they don't stop or go away when I have something in front of me. Worst of all, I can become very preoccupied with these feelings themselves, like an alarm is going off somewhere and I can't find it to shut it off, and that stress triggers other symptoms of my mental illnesses. Managing this, for me, is basically chatting with myself and saying "I get it, we're feeling kind of off today, and that's ok. I feel like I'm a robot in a simulation? Cool, robots can still sort clothes and play laundromat simulator, so let's go do some laundry."

See... As far as I understand them, dissociation and spacing out aren't the same thing. They can happen at the same time, and one can make me more prone to the other, but they don't stem from the same root. 🤷‍♂️

[0verthinking1t]

Unpopular attempt at a meme time for my undiagnosed or diagnosed late friends, but...

While you were flying under the radar getting treated like other kids, I was studying the blade (and a bit of psychiatry, counselling, neurology, advanced social skills, harmful self discipline techniques....) The sum of our experiences are not the same 🤺

Ok for real tho let me explain, because legit I have nothing but respect for folks who are just finding out there's an explanation for why life has always been so shitty and hard. I sincerely hope you're finding relief in the community and resources that are open to you now, and I'm glad you're here with us. It's incredibly difficult going through life not knowing your game is set on hard mode, but in a weird way, I wish I could have been you.

I made a post a while ago about a hypothetical conversation with young me to try and demonstrate the unspoken double standard some neurodivergent kids may be held to, and how it becomes the root of a lot of symptoms later in life. Being diagnosed at 6 years old, I had the advantages of knowing, of parents and teachers knowing, and of having a way to ask for help, and that advantage has given me a huge leg up even now. On the flip side tho, that double standard I mentioned comes with the feeling of added responsibility for my mental problems starting at an age I was too young to even understand what "responsibility" meant in that sense— 'you're ADHD, so you have to manage your mood swings. You're ADHD, so you have to make more of an effort to get along with others. You're ADHD, so you have to know more about how your brain works than most adults. You're ADHD, so you have to learn extra ways to fit in with everyone else.' To simplify it with a metaphor, if we're each given a sort of "rulebook" for life as children, I feel like folks diagnosed young get one twice as thick as everyone else's. Neither way of struggling through life is preferable over the other, of course.... But I kind of wish I had gotten to experience life without the extra rules as a kid, just for a little while. I wish I knew a time when I didn't feel like the burden of emotional responsibility was solely on me.

[0verthinking1t]

Hi, Neurodivergent!blr (is that a thing?? 😆), It's been a while since I've posted about my mental health journey. Today I want to express about a particularly baffling ADHD mood. So a lot of us know about the Rabbit Hole; it starts with a question, which leads to a Google search, and suddenly you wake up 3 hours later with back pain and a thorough understanding of the nerve pathways that carry electric impulses across the human heart. Falling down these Rabbit Holes is usually an "inattentive" type behavior where we space out, hyperfixate, let our body go into screensaver mode, and stop being conscious of things like time and task work, but there's a similar "hyperactive" counterpart to it, which I'm deciding to call my White Rabbit mode.

White Rabbit Mode is a term I came up with based on the same Alice in Wonderland reference, but some people call it the Zoomies. You start with 1 errand that really needs to be done ASAP, but then you can't get started until you do two other chores you were going to get to anyway, and then you need to clean up after those chores, but 'I don't have time for all this, I wanted to leave for that errand and hour ago', and then since you're cleaning up, you might as well clean that other mess you've been meaning to get to while you're riding the motivation wave, and then something else comes up because 'is that the time?? Fuck, I need to leave for that errand, I can still make it', and then..... By the end of the day, you end up getting an entire to-do list of shit done, but none of them are the original errand that you've been Late, You're Late, For a Very Important Thing!! worrying about all day. This original errand then gets moved to "tomorrow", or "my next day off", or, unfortunately most often, to "eehh.... Eventually" as the fluke dopamine rush you've been following all day comes to an end and vanishes back into the aether.

I present you, my example of this White Rabbit mode: I desperately need to get to the laundromat like, yesterday. That led to emptying out an old backpack, and then I realized I need to eat something and remembered I ordered groceries, and then.... I still haven't left with the laundry 😓😓😓

[0verthinking1t]

👁

🧿

[0verthinking1t]

Hey, in case no one has told you this before, here's the permission you need. There's more to life than working or being productive.

Especially here in the US, society has been focused for a long time on this ideal picture of success involving 40+ hours a week at a desk job that took a 2 year degree and 10 years of climbing the workplace ladder to get to, so that you can be 100% independent, own a car and a house, have a nice nuclear family, etc. For some of us, our parents, grandparents, other family or loved ones, might be products of a time when that ideal was more attainable, and when we were less conscious of the importance of mental/emotional health and self care— my dad is one of those people, and today, I am starting the conversation with him about how my life is set up right now. TL;DR, folks like my dad mean the best, and it's not that they will intentionally disrespect the path that's right for you, but they might not have the ability to imagine that there's more out there than just the One Ideal Way they were shown. I sympathize and I understand where it comes from, but at the end of the day, I don't have to do what he wants for me. Neither do you. The only person who gets to decide what's healthy and stable for you, is you.

You do not have to work yourself into the ground just to keep up with everyone else. You do not have to "suck it up", or abstain from finding help if you're struggling. Your parents muscled through shit on their own; their parents muscled through shit; everyone else around you seems to be successfully muscleing through shit; that does not mean you have to be like any of them. You are allowed to decide that you can only handle the stress of working 4 days a week, or 3, or however many. You are allowed to apply for SNAP so that you can afford fresh veggies and your favorite foods without working too much to eat them. You are allowed to say "actually I would like to not go through life on my own right now", and ask for support from therapists, doctors, assistance programs, et cetera. Forget everyone else, you do not have to suffer just because they do.

And here's the thing when it comes to disabilities, especially if you're like me with invisible ones or ones that you never knew counted: if you're putting in double the effort as everyone else just to keep up with their "normal", that's not living like everyone else. In reality, you're ending up half as comfortable and stable as they are, and it's that end result that counts. So what if your way of taking care of you looks different than your neighbor's; if you are both happy, healthy, and feeling fulfilled, you're both reaching the same result.

[khafra3khofomankawra3]

One thing that really bothers me is the scene where Quan Yizhen goes over to Yin Yu to get his birthday present. And that thing is that everyone who views the scene from a neurotypical lense interprets it wrong.

For autistic people, routine is very important, it's basically how we function, we think in a very structered way.

So imagine this: a classroom always has a certain session where everyone gets to colour in some worksheets as a class activity.

A little autistic kid knows when that session is, so they start preparing their stuff move away their other irrelevant books.

The teacher asks them why they did that and the kid simply responds with "it's worksheet time".

The teacher then tells the kid that they won't be doing that today and then the kid proceeds to get distressed or even have a meltdown because of this sudden change in their schedule.

Now think about how Quan Yizhen used to receive a gift fom Yin Yu every year on his birthday (plus that maybe he didn't even understand or care about the concept of birthdays that much so he only viewed it as a routine).

When he goes over to Yin Yu, and is asked why he's there he simply asks for his gift, not because he's a prick or a dumbass, but it's because he views it as a simple routine an expects it to happen.

Anyway, this is only if we state that Quan Yizhen is Autistic (which honestly I doubt he's neurotypical) so it works in that scenario.

[0verthinking1t]

First, I'd like to present to the court my evidence to support OP's claim: in terms of canon, MXTX made it a significant point to show that Quan Yizhen has very little concept of materialism for the sake of wealth. His followers dump tons of money into his temples to avoid his wrath, and he has way more extra gold than he knows what to do with, literally. That weird loner guy was nice to him and saved his ass at that big important feast, and he wants to be friends back. Hey, Loner guy has a super empty donations box and can't fix his house— QYZ has tons of money he doesn't want and won't use! If he gives it all to loner guy, then loner guy will like him and want to hang out! After all, that's how QYZ's friend Wind Master made all their friends, so it has to work for him too, right? Xie Lian never actually gets him to understand why he can't keep giving XL all his money; eventually they leave it on a 'look, I have to go. Just.... Stop doing it from now on, ok?' and 'I still dont get why, but if it makes you happy for me to stop, then it makes me happy too 🤷‍♂️'

...... And second, I fucking love QYZ ok, he's my fav character specifically FOR the neurodivergent bluntness, and like. call him a dick if you want, but is he wrong tho??? Your highschool level drama bullshit does not make logical sense, hon. Eat a Snickers and just punch eachother if you're so mad at eachother already. XL made meatball soup? Ok but how the fuck is it meatballs. No, I watched you put stir fry veggies in that pan, XL, tell me how the fuck they became meatballs. Y'all keep your NT stereotypes, I will take him home and take care of him and love him just the way he is.

[0verthinking1t]

The many layers of learning to respect my own boundaries

As a society, we are very well aware of that epiphany of mental health clarity that happens both in real life, and in the media we love. It's the inspiring, falling-action power move in every Hallmark movie, where the unlucky doormat protagonist finally turns around and says to their boss from hell, "you know what? You're right, I don't belong here. I belong somewhere 10 times better! I quit, and also, you're a massive dickwad 😜". What we're less aware of, and where the truly hard and exhausting work to get better and feel better comes in, is after that moment where it happens again to their family life, and again to their social life, and again to the mirror when they regret the shitty impulse decisions they keep repeating every single time. I am incredible at standing up to bosses; I will be working only the documented scheduled hours agreed upon in my employment contract, and also in adherence to this contract I do not accept responsibility for anything outside of this schedule. If an incident occurred after my scheduled shift ended and I had already left, and management failed to coordinate coverage for that time, i am legally not at fault for that incident, and it's against federal labor law to punish me for it. I am very confident asserting myself in partner relationships; yes, I love you, and that love means respect—I respect you enough to treat you in a healthy way, the way I want to be treated, and I also respect myself enough to demand that respect from you in return, end of story. I thought I was the fucking master at boundaries, but as it turns out, I still have so much more to learn 😅 so now I present to you todays lesson, told through yet another confusingly metaphorical conversation: revoking the privilege to overstep my boundaries from a friend I didn't realize I was letting do it.

D: Aaayyyy door guard, my long time buddy! I'm here for today's "watch anime and order pizza" shift. Unlock the door for me 😀

Me: aaayyyy I know, Dude, I'm super psyched you're here! Yea, come on in, just tap your badge 😛

D: maaan, it's me, bro, I come here every day. I've been in the system for like, 5 years, you know I have clearance. Just unlock it, my badge is in the car.

Me: yea, I do see you every day, and you tell me the same thing and ask me to let you in every day. Central command has been hardcore cracking down on folks for doing that and I kinda like getting to see people come in this door, sooooo I kinda have to start being that guy, ya know? 😅 I don't like it either, but them's the rules.

D: aaaw what??? Man that's so fucked up of central. I'm sorry they're doing that my guy. Shit, that sucks, I know you like hanging out here with us.

Me: yep. I sure do. 😐 ............ So I need you to go get your badge.

D: but my car is 10 minutes away, I'll be late for the thing and get in trouble.

Me: 🤷‍♂️ I hear you. I mean, I'll call central comms and bullshit you some coverage if you wanna go back for it. But like.... The reports and timing and shit for that is already a ton of extra work I'd be going out of my way to do for you. I'd appreciate it if you do me the solid in return, of getting your badge so that I don't get in trouble.

D: but why tho?? You let me do it yesterday!

Me: I did, and Central emailed me afterward saying that they had noticed me break the rules and were warning me they could shut down this door altogether if I do it again. You want to keep coming here, right?

D: what?! Dis bullshit!

Me: I know

D: they're being so mean!

Me: I know!

D: so what are folks supposed to do now? And how long did they say this is going to last??

Me: it's .... It's a rule, Dude. It's permanent. Has been the whole time, technically. Look, if you just bring your badge every time from now on, you won't even notice.

D: oh, well fuck you too, friend. I thought you were cool. This whole central command thing is a bullshit excuse to say you don't think I'm good enough to get in any more.

Me: ???? No. I literally, am just trying to do things right for once. Look, I'm on your side Dude, but I can't use the unlock button any more. I have to take care of myself here too.

D: I can't believe this. My own friend of 5 years, treating me like some sketchy criminal. *Sigh* I understand you're just doing your job, and I don't want to cause you to lose this door, but like really?

Me: I know you do, and I also think it's stupid and want you to just go ahead and hang out already, but my life can't be all you or all the door.

D: man, I said I'm sorry, I don't know what else you want me to do. Just let me in today and I'll bring it tomorrow 😠

Me: no means no, Dude. And if I say no today, I mean no today. Look, forget it Dude— I really need to focus up on this task while I guard this door, so.

D: fine. But I'm going to walk in now —..... 30 minutes after I was supposed to be there!

Me: yep. I guess you are. I wish it were my problem to help you with Dude.

D: wow, ok. Fine, I guess I'll just turn back and miss out on the whole thing then. Way to go, door guard, you fucking ruined the day.

Me: I want you to. I'm begging you to. Please just follow this ONE rule so we can be friends again. Do it for me...... *Sigh* aaaaand they're gone 😓😓😓

[0verthinking1t]

Mental health media warning

(this post is about disabilities and episodic triggers, please check tags before reading)

Hi guys. Just wanted to give a PSA for no reason at all, definitely not inspired by personal experience that kept me up til 2am on a work night crying like a little weenie or anything ha ha ha ha ha.... Bit of a long one, spoilers are all together towards the bottom, some of this is just about my shitty life, so TL;DR: the movie Babadook is not a fun scary spooky season film like The Grudge or Saw. It is an extremely heavy commentary on mental health crises and generational trauma. Maybe skip it if you're in a less ok spot, brain-wise.

I know this is old news, but for anyone else who lives with me under this "I don't like scary movies" rock: Babadook is not a scary movie for some folks with trauma caused by toxic family; it is a horror movie. It follows the story of a single mother and young child through the terrors of grief, depression, unhealthy spiraling, and mental breaks. The title monster isn't real, but the unhealthy and dangerous behaviors from the characters very much are, and it is unsettling and horrifying on a level that twists the pit of your gut and pulls tears down your face— especially if you or your family have ever been in the mother or child's shoes. The plot uses grief and acute depression after a loss as a carrier, but the concept speaks to a wide variety of experiences and mental health issues; it is about watching a loved one rapidly decline into crisis until they become so unrecognizably different they are barely human, and about the feeling of desperate powerlessness to help them. It is about the very real experience of living with a parent with mental health issues.

PSA: Babadook can be extremely triggering for folks currently fighting battles with cPTSD, death of loved ones, depression, anxiety, domestic assault, schizophrenia, psychosis, DID, severe Bipolar Disorder, and more. It can also be triggering for people who experience these all secondhand, who care for family and others close to them who fight these battles. It will go deeper and farther than you could possibly be prepared for. I don't want to tell anyone a hard "do not ever watch this", but I do advise watching it where and when you feel safest and having a friend you can confide in on deck for after (if not watching it with you).

My mother is an alcoholic. I don't just see myself in Samuel, the child; I WAS him, from when I was 13 until I finally made it out of that house at 27. Amelia, the mother, wears my mother's expressions and shouts my mother's words. The only differences are that I had to watch her unravel and wither in agonizingly slow motion by comparison, and that we don't have a happy ending. she's still possessed by her monster, and it very nearly took me many times over. Amelia's transformation in the movie is real, Sam's lines "you're not my mother!" And "I promise to protect you if you promise to protect me; then I won't talk about it," are so horrifyingly real. To this day, I also feed and comfort my own monster, spawn of my mother's before it, and her parents' before hers, and I fight for my life every day to make sure its lineage ends with me. I'm very fortunate and grateful to have an amazing team of primary and mental healthcare providers supporting me and the branches of my ongoing treatment today, which includes both a therapist I can trust to share the weight with me and a psychiatrist who talks to me as an equal partner.

**Spoilers (Trigger Talk)**

🐶❌ there is a scene, foreshadowed in advance, where a dog is killed— the act itself is sensored with dramatic camera angling, but it is partially onscreen. This is the only death that takes place during the events of the movie.

👨‍👦❌ A child is forced to take, and implied, abuse sedative drugs for part of the film. (Personal example: I ended up going to bed really late and needing to take an OTC sleep aid. It took me a good minute or two to be ok just opening the container.)

🚙❌ The main characters are involved in a minor car crash when Amelia is mentally unwell and loses control of the car— there are no injuries in this scene.

👨‍👦🟡 A little girl is pushed off a bit of a height; she survives with just a broken nose (that she kind of deserves 🤷‍♂️).

✅ The old lady neighbor is an absolute peach, and nothing bad happens to her.

👨‍👦❌ A child is choked but breaks free before suffocating.

✅🟡 as a major credit to the writers and developers, they gave the audience a bit of aftercare in a lovely and satisfying happy ending where everyone gets the help they need and the main characters are able to heal and move on together. If you do want to give it a try and get overwhelmed, key scenes where things get better are (🤢❌) after Amelia gets tied down and vomits, and after that (🟡✅) where the monster gets locked in the basement. The second one marks the start of the conclusion, and nothing after that is scary or uncomfortable.

I want to include a disclaimer that I am in no way a mental health/disability expert. I speak only from my own experiences of depression, anxiety, probable cPTSD, and exposure to toxic family members, and from experiences described to me by close ones who fight PTSD, schizophrenia, DID, Bipolar Disorder, and psychotic episodes. I do not presume to know what reality is like for anyone outside myself and those I've cared about through life; I simply include this limited list of examples knowing what we as individuals are extremely bothered by, as a warning flag for anyone who might share similar triggers and experiences. This movie caught me off guard and seriously upset me, and I worry for others who may not have the tools and skills to manage such an unexpected emotional response yet. If you're having a hard time with just anything in life— especially your mental/emotional health— I encourage you to seek treatment; find a therapist/psychiatrist/primary care doctor/medical caseworker, tell them it's time to get help and that you don't know where to start, and from then on make yourself an equal part of your care team. It's long and exhausting, but there are professionals out there ready and willing to be your safety net. ❤️

[0verthinking1t]

Mood malfunction

Lol I have three (3) mood disorders. Probably about 90% of the time, my emotional bullshit can be identified as an ADHD-amplified reaction to something that totally warrants a reaction, but the other 10%.... That's where the A n' D reign (mentally saying all 3 is exhausting, so I shorten the Anxiety and Depression too 😛).

I'm currently curled up on the couch with some Oreos, strawberries, and cheese, trying to parent my brain out of a case of the grumps to no avail. CBT and EBT techniques are really helpful for dealing with ADHD moods, because there are tools like the wheel of emotions that can help me trace my feelings to the source, and strategies for manually shifting my brain from feelings mode to problem solving mode— but their usefulness is much more limited when I'm up against something with no discernable source.

So what do I do after a confusing day at work and 45 minutes of being sardine can-packed into a busier than normal train and 4 hours of sleep last night? Fuck it, let the ADHD mega-toddler brain win for a bit. I mean, if I call out of work with the flu, do you think I'm going to slam the hell out of it with double doses of DayQuil, 3 layers of makeup, and a 20oz half-espresso iced latte for nobody?? So who the fuck am I going to mask for in my own apartment?? If we're allowed to relax and just experience physical illness when we're safe and comfortable, our brains should get the same permission, too. As an example, here are the things my mental grabby hands get to have tonight:

Relaxing on the couch: i don't do this as much, and it's a nice change. Also, there's clean laundry and a bunch of disability paperwork on my bed right now, so fuck that.

The mega-toddler wants choccy snacks for dinner? Sure kiddo. At least the craving for Oreos comes with the craving for strawberries, which in turn comes with the craving for Brie cheese.

Frustration fixation: you know that mood coping with mood disorders helps us avoid? Feel it, just this once. I'm grumpy and tired, and a fun package I thought got delivered today while I was at work isn't here. At least if I spend a couple hours pouting at email receipts and obsessing over the tracking updates, I'll stop being grumpy about work things. Bonus, I learned a couple things about mail courier services.

Blankies: because shut up. No justification needed. Also it's cold today and I wanna be snuggly and fall aesthetic.

Cartoons: I haven't decided yet, but it's going to be very colorful, very silly, and minimal plot. No analyzing, only laughs.

Probably a cry later, idk. I could use some manually produced endorphins right now.

Alright folks, that's it for this one. I'm off to have naptime. Be patient and understanding with yourself, and give yourself permission to put the baggage down when you're in your own space. You need the rest ❤️

[melodymuse24-deactivated2024011]

[0verthinking1t]

I mean.... Sort of?? Idk, I'd more describe it as the ridiculosly long chain of quests you need to go through to get a house in Skyrim. Yea, they're side quests, and I wish I could skip them too, but if I don't bust the skooma ring in riften, find the official mage's book or whatever, and then go out to the hookah lounge in the woods and kill the vampires secretly running it as a cover for their human trafficking business, the mayor won't let me have the ability to safely put down all these magic trophy weapons I can't fucking carry. Or to put my horse somewhere it won't run away. Or to collect my favorite NPCs, who won't become my family and stay put in one place unless I offer them a designated NPC pen to live in. Or to put down all my hard earned stolen cheese wheels where they won't disappear. >3>

They're not side quests, ok? It's just that the main story quest I want to do has prerequisites on its prerequisites. 😓 And folks wonder why we're so overwhelmed 100% of the time.

[0verthinking1t]

Metaphor Storytime!

This will happen occasionally, because as I'm sure those of you with it know, ADHD brain processes literally everything by patterns and association. So let's talk about some of my metaphors for life. Today's story is Do the Drop.

Ok, so over the past 10 years just about, I have trained off and on in circus, mainly focusing on clowning and props, balancing, aerials, and basic strength/weight training. I say on and off, because I'm incapable of forming my own routine, and classes and/or personal Trainor sessions are... Financially unattainable, at times. Anyway, when I can afford to be training, I like to say that I do clowning and balancing for the bread (I also street perform once in a great while, so these are the things that put bread in my stomach. Not to say I don't enjoy them; they're a ton of fun, but my One True Love in terms of circus art is just elsewhere), and aerials for the heart (I don't care if having the skill and setup to be a legit performer ever comes to form; I go to the classes simply for the enjoyment of touching hoop and fabric and getting my feet off the ground on a regular basis. The act alone brings me joy).

There are certain tricks in aerial performance called "Drops". These are the ones where you set up by wrapping yourself in fabric or rope, or hang yourself over the bottom of the hoop or bar of the trapeze, and then let go and look pretty as you trust gravity to do the work. There are drops that spin you into front flips, slide you down like a fire pole, even drops (especially on the hoop) where you straight up just let go and grab somewhere else. An example is a trick I learned as the "Chandelier Drop" on the Lyra hoop— simple, yet complicated. You start from an inverted hang off the top, between the points if you're on a 2 point hoop (which is fancy for saying hanging upside down from your knees at the top, between the parts where the rope is hooked on 😛). To prep, you reach down for the bottom of the hoop, hold it straight out slightly in front of you without locking your elbows (so the hoop is tilted and not pointed directly at the floor— you're vertical and upside down), unhook your non- dominant leg from the hoop, and stick it out in front of you at a 90° angle or less toward the floor (so yes, you're hanging by one leg, with the other kicking straight out in front of you), and tilt your head back so your chin points toward the floor.

Then to do the drop, you just let go of your other leg. in the few seconds you're in the air, your second leg swings forward to join the first, and your hands keep the bottom of the hoop from hitting you in the face while guiding it safely into your hips. You end up in a hip-hang, piking your legs straight in front of you and holding the bar with bent elbows, essentially looking like you're sitting in a chair upside down with a safety belt across your lap. Simple— the drop itself is one step; just let go and the next thing you're aware of is that it's already over. Let go, kick, protect face, done. Complicated— the setup is very precise; if your legs are just slightly too open or you hyperextend your elbows without thinking, you could fall out of the hoop, and if your grip fails there, you could be falling face-, neck-, or tailbone first. If you're not holding the bar firm enough in place, it'll swing back directly under your head and you'll end up with a black eye or a nosebleed at the very least; if you try to hold it too firm, the bar will land on the straight of your thigh instead of the crease of your hip, and you'll end up with some bruised femurs and a very awkward front flip or invert (any time you're upside down— this time from your hands, like a very crooked Olympic rings competitor).

So where's the metaphor for life come in? Right, I'll get to the actual point. When I first learned to do beginner drops, like the Chandelier, I had problems where I would freeze at the top and not be able to let go. I was so afraid of that dead weight falling sensation and all the things that could go wrong, that I would make sure I set up perfectly, but then I physically could not open my hands and let go of the bar (or the hoop, or the fabric). I was just... Frozen, suspended, the perfect living depiction of the archetypal Hanged Man card from a tarot deck. This locked up, instinctive hesitation was, in itself, dangerously unsustainable— these setup positions are not designed to be held indefinitely, and they're not considered secure or resting positions. If I don't let go with that knee eventually, the blood will rush to my head and I'll pass out; if I don't choose to open my first on the fabric soon my hand will get sweaty and tired and I'll slip off of it anyway. If I try to baby my way through it or slow down the fall to process it in real time, I could put more stress on my palms or hips or muscles than there should be and get too fatigued to make it to the ground safely, or give myself horrible rope burns or bruises that will take weeks to heal, or even sprain or dislocate a joint. Sometimes my anxiety is the armor that keeps me safe from very real dangers around me, and keeps me prepared for things that aren't planned for; this time though, that same anxiety is my mortal enemy, and if I allow it to have any space in this moment at all, those dangers that it wants to point out and prepare for indefinitely will come to pass. Sometimes it's fundamentally required that I put life on pause, give my fear or grief or discomfort attention and space to exist, and let them wash over before I can healthily move forward; but the only thing that letting those emotions do all the talking for me will do in this moment is make things worse. In order to safely do the drop, in order to get the extremely satisfying and rewarding rush of adrenaline and dopamine from completing the trick, I have to tell them to shut up for a second and wait til it's over to talk. I have to empty my brain, stop thinking, and just Do the Drop.

This is.... Not only foreign, but completely contradictory to the nature of how my brain works. I'm ADHD; there is no off switch to the voices in my head. I have general anxiety; everything is scary, especially the things I don't know about yet, so I have to imagine all of them and plan for every single one. "Just be quiet and wait til after" is not something my rambunctious toddler of a nervous system can just do. So how do I get it to let me do the fun thing?? I trick it, by using its own functions against it. See, another feature of ADHD is that it comes with both future blindness and object impermanence, the result of which is essentially that anything outside of the next 24 hours is a physical object I cannot see and therefore cannot functionally process the existence of. ADHD folks have trouble setting long term goals because of this; there is no timeline, there is only "right fucking now" or "perpetual later", and there's no pathway between them to move things back and forth. We end up procrastinating things we don't want to do because they are only ever on the distant horizon until they are suddenly right on top of us. There is no watching them approach; there is only seeing these things teleport directly from there to here. If this sounds to be a direct paradox with those ever present voices of fear that have to make us imagine and plan out every single thing before they happen, that's because you are correct— they are complete opposites. They happen at the same time. We're just as scared and confused as you are. Basically, one is a process that involves the "theory" of planning, or the creativity and racing thoughts we're always teeming with, and the other is the "practical application" of it, or performing the executive function of things like processing time and delaying gratification. For us, they're separate parts of the brain.

Getting back to that Chandelier drop on the Lyra hoop from earlier, now I know what's currently happening— the imagination and emotion parts of my brain are turned on and using too much power— and what should be happening instead— the executive function and physical movement parts of my brain should be turned on and doing most of the work— and what that looks like in terms of what my brain is doing and not doing— imagining all the ways I could die vs. moving and protecting my body. So now I can manually, consciously turn off the anxiety symptoms and turn on the ADHD symptoms, which goes a little like this: ok, what am I doing right now? Well I'm setting up a drop and I'm letting go of the hoop and I'm hitting myself in the face or falling on my neck or looking stupid and ungraceful when I mess up or— nah, stop that. I'm not actually doing all of that right now. I'm just doing this one thing. Wanna know what it is? I— but— o-oh? Ok... Cool. All I'm doing right now is kicking my left leg. ..... O-oh. Yea. It's super easy, look, the arms and the chin and the extra leg stuff are already done, they're cool. I'm just doing the kick thing right now. But.... What happens after? Lol fuck if I know, dude. I have zero forsight. Anyway, time isn't real, so I'm just gunna go ahead and do it now. ONE, TWO, THREE— >~~<;;;........ >~~0 oh. It's.... It's already over. We survived. Yep. Neat, huh?

I have this internal conversation between Anxiety and ADHD, of course, preprogrammed and compressed into a single, split-second command function for efficiency and automation. When I consciously "input the command" or think to myself, "Do the Drop", my brain instantly switches gears as if it's already had this conversation with itself— the executive function and physical movement parts switch on and take their required energy, which forces the emotional and creative sections to switch off. When I tell myself "do the drop", I go through a mechanical process that is linked to the countdown— look straight ahead, deep breath in, transfer thought to muscular impulse. Blink. Action complete. And before I know it, I'm already sitting in the end position. I don't want to say that I close my eyes, or describe it as blanking out or dissociating, but essentially I've learned to do just that in a safe and controlled way. I can only follow through on the mechanical action if I turn off every unnecessary function of my mind and let my muscles and joints themselves handle the instinct to keep me alive. Once I've transitioned from one secure position to the next secure position, there is only the real result of the past action to process, rather than the projected outcomes of the future; all I have to sort through now is counting up how much strength I have for the next action and distributing the adrenaline that's now in my veins evenly so I can still breathe. Those are things I can already see and touch, those are things I know, they're a lot less scary than the things I don't.

So I come to the end of my story, and bring this all around to my overly complicated metaphors that get me through daily life. Sometimes, things transition from one state to another. Those things on the "later" horizon inevitably appear in the urgent "now" one day. Weather we're aware of these things in our logical mind or not, our emotional mind can only ever handle them one way, as they happen in real time— I may have known for months that my roommate has dreamed of moving to NYC since he was a kid. He may have said to me, point blank and completely bare, "I am moving out in 6 months". These things have been documented by my conscious mind. This documentation means jack shit to my feelings mind. My feelings mind is the shelter cat with weird neurotic quirks I have to be careful of, and while I understand what's about to happen, it's completely unreasonable to expect this animal to understand and behave accordingly. It is only capable of being aware of the present, and is only capable of defending itself from the real things in its environment. So currently, I face a choice: move that scary transition to the "Now" box before it happens, and shut my life down indefinitely as my anxiety runs wild with mapping out all the bad things that could happen and are likely to happen, or allow my ADHD brain to keep ignoring all of it in the "later" box until I'm watching old roomie drive away and watching new roomie use our bathroom in the mornings, and deal with the overly intense and dysfunctional negative feelings as they hit in real time. As with this event in my life now, I have faced this imperfect decision of choice between suffering panic now or suffering despair later.

So the moral of the story is this: sometimes, anxiety is a silent helper. Sometimes, Anxiety is little red riding hood's parents telling her that the rules are to stay on the path no matter what and don't stop for anything until she gets to granny's house. Other times though, it's just the Shepard boy who came running into town shouting about a wolf that wasn't there because he had nothing to keep him occupied. I've learned that there are times when it's rewarding and fun to challenge my anxiety, like when I want to chase that high from doing an aerial drop, or when I want to go out into the city and watch people in a busy cafe. Sometimes, life throws something at me that I can't possibly realistically plan out ahead— and in fact, it may be incredibly unhealthy to let myself do so. It's much less damaging and disruptive to my life to force myself to take these changes as they come. In other words, sometimes there are times in life where I just have to take a deep breath and tell myself... "Ok. I've never experienced this, and I have no template to plan for it. Yeet, motherfucker, let's Do this Drop."

[klaasje]

my kitty cat was wandering around going ‘mrrph?” so i was like “in here!” he goes “mrrph!” shoves open my bedroom door with his big round head and FLOPS on me. as in hard enough that he made a little “oof” noise when he did it. followed by a category five purring event. there’s good in this world mr frodo etc

[0verthinking1t]

Both my roommates left on a weekend trip this morning (they were going to the same place for separate reasons and decided to go together and stay with family), and my roommate's cat definitely noticed 😅

I was woken up at 7am to be verbally disciplined, because they had gone out to get something and my door was still, unacceptably, closed. How dare I. The screaming in the hall continued about an hour later, after the roomies had LEFT left, and this time she refused to be placated with a sleepy pat from the Secondary Human. She paced our hall and meowed loudly about the fact her mom had left so early in the day, until I gave in and went to sit in the living room— roomie #2, the Tertiary Human's designated spot. It was a subpar performance of the household duties, but her highness dubbed it at least sufficient, and finally settled down for a loaf and some quiet time.

Yeah, our little monster is kind of a diva sometimes, but she does love us all in her own way 😆

[0verthinking1t]

Down For Maintenance: how I got so good at saying I feel bad

Ok, so I just got off my weekly therapy session, and it left me with thoughts of my experiences in hindsight, the things I've learned about myself after quitting social masking, and the "compliment" I keep getting that I'm so uncommonly articulate about my mental health needs and so good at advocating for myself. Fair warning, this is an unfiltered rant. I'm angry and tired, and I need to be angry and tired out loud for a minute.

Here's the secret trick: I'm not. I'm not articulate, or well spoken, or a naturally good communicator. I'm exhausted, and I'm fucking pissed off. I told my therapist it feels like all the social activities and groups that have been my stable foundation for the last few years are disappearing suddenly, and gave her an example of my most beloved D&D group and the two players whose private beef just forced us to take an indefinite hiatus. I told her that I reacted by flat out telling the one of them still talking to us that I'm very upset neither of them warned the group they were having issues; I'm not taking sides, and I'm not saying I don't want to be sensitive to the awful shit they're in right now, but thanks to the fact that I was blindsided by this I am now also in my own shit situation and they needed to have handled their commitment to their other friends better. She commended me, and asked how I thought I was able to build up the skill to tell someone something like that instead of distancing myself and losing the whole game and group I loved in the name of being sensitive to someone else. That's when it occurred to me, not for the first time, that professionals aren't used to dealing with patients who are this self aware and informed. Everyone I've had to go through on this journey, from my doctor to my psychiatrist to both my therapists, has reacted with shock and amazement that I know exactly what's wrong with me and how it can be fixed; "wow, how did you convince your PCP to get you on antidepressants so fast?" Because I was on them as a teenager and specifically know what to say when I ask for them— hey doc, I've had clinical depression since I was a kid, and I'm starting to have episodes of emotional distress and mild suicidal thinking that I can't handle. I was on Prozac years ago and I want to be put back on something now. "Oh, this outline you typed up and brought to our first psychiatry appointment actually covers everything I needed to ask you today. People aren't usually so well prepared!" I'm not, I've just been through psych, therapy, and CBT before and am already aware of a lot of the things you usually need to coax out of people, including the fact that I have memory issues and problems putting thoughts into speech, and I knew that if I didn't write all this and show it to you I wouldn't present as nearly half as bad as I am. "How did you know to tell your d&d friend how you feel? It sounds like you already have a lot of skills coping with things well" I didn't know to tell him shit, my other group just self destructed like a baking soda volcano because someone kept badgering me to 'share my feelings' when I kept telling them I was upset and needed to walk away from the conversation, which led to me running out of energy to filter myself and giving them exactly the angry, overreactive, barely cohesive essay of a rant they were demanding from me. I used up all my patience on that issue, and I'm fucking traumatized by this endless cycle of my friend groups breaking up over drama just when I was starting to relax and feel like this one was finally going to stick around, and at this point it's a matter of either not pretending I'm fine so we can all drift apart awkwardly in peace or putting myself in the goddamn hospital for the final emotional meltdown that has me screaming in the streets and ripping my skin off. I have not built up a skill, I have had my last defense torn down. Advocating for myself is now a matter of life or death.

To explain it metaphorically (because what's an ADHD brain without confusing metaphors that go on too long until they also don't make sense), I'll give the example that the human brain is designed to automatically force shut down your system if you don't sleep for long enough. In an act of self preservation, you will start experiencing involuntary blackouts as your brain forces you to give it the maintenance time it requires to keep you alive. When you've been physically exerting yourself nonstop for several days, you literally run out of power and just. Stop. Likewise, I feel that, at least for me, the mental/emotional system has its own system override to force you into resting and processing. I've been pretty much flooring it for the last 10 years— masking for a good 90% of my conscious time, forcing myself to fit a way of living that wasn't made for me because that's just what I was told was right, going it alone and without treatment because the trauma I was experiencing was still hanging over my head and silencing me, hopping from job to job every few months until I convinced myself the voice of my insecurity was coming from the people around me, studying the correct ways to have certain conversations ("how to ace a job interview", "how to lock down a sale", "how to impress people at parties", etc)— I have not truly rested in an emotional sense for...... I don't remember that I ever have, really. And it's all because when I was 6 and someone told me my brain isn't built right, I was taught that it was my responsibility to be ever-vigilant and critical of my own reality. It was my responsibility to stop mid argument and tell myself 'they don't understand why I'm upset because my feelings aren't proportionate to what actually happened. They must be right, and my feelings are usually lying to me.' my responsibility to hold it in around normal people, to put myself in time out when I get too passionate for the conversation, to parent myself out of temper tantrums and eating ice cream for breakfast and touching things that fascinate me.

I was never taught how to rest.

Making the recent decision to let myself be healthily unpleasant when I'm upset was a matter of my emotional state forcing me to take rest and heal myself. I have been seriously injured by bosses who not only expect, but require me to forgo my enjoyment of life and dedicate my entire soul to them, one too many times. I have been seriously injured by the sudden loss of entire support systems over some petty drama or miscommunication, one too many times. I am finally ready to give people the "honesty" they think they're asking for, not because I have built up confidence, but because I have lost the energy to hold back. My feelings aren't lying to me; it is a scientific, observable, undebatable fact that I am upset about something, and I am as entitled to voice that as everyone else. Yes, I feel upset more intensely than others do, and I can't always explain in a good way, but that is an unchangeable function of my mental illness that the right people who really want to be around me will do their best to be aware of. I am not going to take twice as much damage from things because you don't want to handle my needs. It's time for me to fucking rest.

the Social Etiquette server is currently offline for required maintenance. We kindly ask for your patience during this unexpected hiatus, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We hope to be catering to your emotions again very soon! ~ 💙

[scratch-meowt]

[0verthinking1t]

Was trying to get a friend to understand the other day why I'm never satisfied with revenge arcs in media. Sometimes I just want to see my petty little meow meow get what he fucking wants. Why? I have childhood trauma resulting in a rage and resentment that can never truly be quenched, friend; sometimes the best therapy is watching someone get what I want 😊

No more of this "this isn't you" "you're not worth this" "I'm better than this" "I won't stop to your level" bullshit, bitch I have been wronged and my anger is legitimate. None of that melodramatic fluff has helped me deal with the real thing, and full honesty, the person that did this to me deserves to be punished with the knowledge of my anger at the very least. All it teaches is that if someone attacks you, you keep your head down and let them, so that the rest of society isn't bothered by your conflict. Fuck it— I want my character to get revenge, knowingly and intentionally, in the pettiest way possible, with zero regret and a big plate of chocolate cake. My character and I are going to saunter willingly into villainhod and get comfy as we prop our boots up in that evil looking throne. 🖕