Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Not today Justin
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH

Andulka

ellievsbear

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
we're not kids anymore.
will byers stan first human second

tannertan36
i don't do bad sauce passes
tumblr dot com
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
dirt enthusiast
cherry valley forever
sheepfilms

Love Begins

★
Claire Keane

roma★
NASA

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@cheesecakeandpuddin
Executive functioning is defined generally as a set of mental skills that we use every day in our work, school, and home lives. Some of them include planning, organization, self-control, time management, task initiation, metacognition (awareness and understanding of one's own thought process), working memory, attention, perseverance and flexibility. I suspect some folks have more trouble with some than others. But essentially executive functioning is what allows us to independently function successfully throughout our day. I can tell you the ones I have trouble with (self-control, working memory, attention, flexibility.) And now I am sure that this is what has kept me from really pursuing further schooling. I graduated from Iona College with a BA in English in 2008. I worked a few different jobs before I landed in my career as a paraprofessional in 2014. I love my job. I think I'd make a great teacher and everyone else has told me so, too, even my principal. But getting another degree feels so out of reach. I attended some classes to start towards a masters at Kingsborough Community College in 2014, or 2015... getting myself to classes after working all day felt impossible but I did it. For one semester. And then I was so exhausted. And then I went to Hunter for one class one semester. It was a night class, from 6-9 after work on Tuesday and Thursday. By the time 6pm rolls around on a workday, I have already reached my threshold of inner stress many, many times, mostly due to sensory overload. I barely had the mental and physical energy to get to class after work.
So when people would ask me when I was going back to school, I wanted to tell them, I am trying. But it doesn't look like I am trying. The process of applying to Hunter alone had me in tears, panicking on the couch because I didn't know which section to fill out first or what paperwork I would need or how to navigate the website. These are the things people don't see when they say, oh, go back to school! Like, I want to. I really do. But facing all of the process of getting there is what's holding me back. And it's not because I am lazy. I feel so validated to know that now, and I don't need a doctor to tell me. All of my life I was told I was just lazy and needed to try harder. Smart, but definitely not putting in my full potential. But no one sees what goes on in my head. I can pass you and say "good morning!" quite pleasantly and still be freaking out internally. This morning, my husband was clicking a pen and I burst into tears and felt like I needed to hide, panicking. This is not normal. This is not baseline for most people. These are not optimal functioning conditions for anyone. I want to feel "normal" - I don't want sounds to bother me, I don't want to feel like there is a thousand foot tall brick wall between me and my goals.
Folks I trust and have spoken with on the subject of being evaluated for autism spectrum disorder concur that I shouldn't seek a diagnosis if it's just for validation. And part of me thinks, who cares if it's just for validation? Validation that how I have felt my whole life, like there is something wrong with me, is just not true. I am not broken. Validation is fucking huge. I had an appointment to see a neuropsych in August, but canceled it because the total cost of the appointment would have been a cool G.
We love to talk about mental health awareness in this country, but that's really ALL we like to do about it. Talk. There's no help, not really. You're lucky to even find a therapist or psychiatrist with availability, and then even better if you're able to pay for it.
I canceled the appointment I had for August to see a psychologist that specializes in Autism Spectrum diagnoses for adults. It was going to cost more than $1,000. I guess at the time when I made the appointment, I thought we'd have that money. We just don't. It really sucks. It feels like there were possibly answers or progress within reach. But not anymore. I spoke with a few people who are on the spectrum or who have family that are diagnosed autistic. Everyone kind of concurred that unless it was for specific work accommodations, it might not actually be "worth it" to seek any diagnosis. At first I thought I didn't need any work accommodations. But the more I think about it, the more I realize just how desperately I do need small chunks of time of just silence and not interacting with people. Like, maybe just 15 minutes of quiet. Those are my best recharges during a work day, when I can find a quiet room to sit in for ten minutes and no one interrupts. It's almost impossible to ask of a NYC public school - a quiet place for people to go and recharge. But that is really what we need, students and adults alike.
I think I probably have a sensory processing disorder that leads to a whole host of other problems that look like other things - for example, the other night when I was cooking and I started to get too hot, and then hair was sticking to my neck, and crumbs were stuck to the bottom of my feet, and then construction was happening outside - I am not happy to admit this, but I quite literally threw a tantrum in the middle of my kitchen - clenching my fists as tightly as I could, gritting my teeth, trying not to physically react. I wanted to explode out of my skin. I wanted to punch a hole through a wall. I wanted to scream and cry. I screamed into a pillow. I didn't feel better until I showered and my skin didn't feel sticky. I think so many of these sensory issues lead to other problems - anxiety, perhaps at anticipating or enduring uncomfortable sensory experiences. Depression, realizing this is not the normal experience for everyone and it is very uncomfortable and practically invisible. Social anxiety, as I can't listen to what you're saying very well if there is music playing in the background, and I have to ask people far too often, "what was that?" A complete lack of executive functioning skills as I become distracted by every sound and smell and touch.
Maybe it isn't autism. Maybe it's crippling sensory overload.
Either way, I will just keep guessing and keep self-treating as well as I can. I'm lucky to have access to what I do - the Calm meditation app has meant the world to me this last year. It's $65/year. Not everyone can afford that. Stuff like that should be free. We lie and tell people the resources are out there and then they try to find them and they are not, they are not free and they are not easily accessible, and you better believe you're going to fill out a shitload of paperwork and jump through a thousand hoops before you can get even hope to get help. And I guess it stands true. What am I looking for in any sort of official diagnosis? Is it validation? Is there something so wrong with wanting to feel validated? To know that there is an explanation for why I have always struggled.
My psychiatrist, who is treating me for anxiety and depression since 2019, checks in with me about once a month before refilling my medications. I asked her about misophonia (literally - hatred of sound) - a condition that is also not often officially diagnosed. I was pretty surprised when she said she had never even heard the term. Misophonia is a strong reaction to specific sounds, such as pencil tapping or gum chewing. People with misophonia can become irritated, enraged or even panicked when they hear their trigger sounds. Hell if that doesn't sound like me.
I'm not entirely sure where to go from here. I'm finding a lot of success in just giving myself permission to avoid situations that I know are going to stress me out. If I am getting uncomfortable somewhere, I don't worry if people are going to be offended if I leave. I just leave. Obviously that's not going to fly at work. It's going to be an adjustment after working from home all last year. But I keep telling myself I have made it this far. I will figure out what works.
Sometimes I wonder if I am "making up" that I have a sensory processing disorder since I am not diagnosed, but then I remember that I am currently hiding in my bedroom with the A/C, a noise machine, and a fan on to drown out the high-pitched ringing coming from an air conditioner on a building next door that NOBODY BUT ME CAN HEAR.
Someone on Twitter pointed out that NYC has seen a surge in COVID cases since July 4. I thought, no way. I googled and sure enough, we have more than doubled our number of new cases in the last few days. Even folks like me who are fully vaccinated and trying to follow the science are just SO OVER COVID. How much more can we mentally handle? I didn't realize how stressful living through a pandemic was until I had time to decompress and restrictions relaxed a little. I am finding that in the wake of the near-constant terror at the idea of a new and deadly virus possibly killing myself and my loved ones, my friends, having to wear masks everywhere we go, canceling trips, canceling work, canceling everything... I'm more than a little shaky. But in the middle of it all we had to just keep going. People who had to work still had to work. Parents still had to parent, we still had to function as a society. Even under all of the stress and fear.
I'd say most of the time we do not begin to process trauma until that trauma is passed. Sometimes we don't process it at all and it just manifests in difficult ways. Sometimes it never really passes. I think previously traumatic situations in my life put me at a bit of an upper hand to mentally handle COVID. But I also know that I have had one tough thing after another these last few years (cancer, my dad passing, and then COVID). I've also had beautiful moments - beating cancer, which reminded me how fragile life is. There's beauty in the struggle. Yeah, all of that. And even being with my father in the end as he transitioned from one plane to another was to me like a birth, in reverse. He struggled to get there. I felt things during that last week he was alive that I can't write or describe. There is an energy in the room around a dying person. I know that his mom and his aunt were there. I asked them to help him, and to help me help him.
I chose my words very carefully when I was speaking with my dad that week. I didn't want him to feel like we were talking about him like he couldn't hear us. I know he heard us until the moment he died. That's a post for another day. I've gone way off on a tangent.
Beautiful moments.
I got married.
I got married!
It was worth saying twice.
And since I got married I have confirmed what I always knew - that the work does not stop once you're married. In fact, it gets even more intricate. You're working with this person every day to love them the best way you can, to support them, to make sure they are happy, to feed them, to HEAR them, to comfort and protect them. To laugh and sleep with them. And what's amazing is, I am still learning new things about my husband, after almost fifteen years together. I love that we can grow together. We can overcome all the hard shit life has thrown at us together. I jokingly told him when I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer that he should take the engagement ring back and run while he had a chance. And he was so mad at me for that. There were times when I was in the hospital and I couldn't talk to him on the phone because I'd cry hearing his voice, I missed him so much, and only wanted him next to me, holding me. I was so scared. In the month or so before I started chemo, the fear would hit me like a punch in the back of the head. One night, I sat in the bedroom alone watching American Horror Story (and not being all that impressed - it was the 1984 season). It hit me that I had no idea what chemo was going to feel like. I sobbed. I couldn't breathe. Uli came from the living room and caught me and held me so tight, so tight. He didn't even need to say anything.
General Electric
I found this on the beach yesterday. It was very heavy. It reads, "G.E. Knob, Patent App'd (Applied) For." I thought it was an oven knob. Turns out it is part of a system for very early wired appliances circa 1890. This knob was used to hold wires in place.
https://reference.insulators.info/publications/view/?id=9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8ekfxijhuA
When I was younger, I guess I cried a lot. Enough that my family thought it was a really good and hilarious idea to start mockingly singing, "Well, it's cryyyyying time agaaaaain.... she's gonna leeeeave me..." every time I cried. And mostly what I remember is that whatever I was crying about, it felt really real to me, and I was crying because I wasn't able to regulate myself for whatever reason. I can't remember what I was crying about exactly most of the time. More than likely I was just in sensory overload. Sometimes there'd be a lot of people in the room, too. I don't know if I can really explain what it feels like to be freaking out internally in my little body and have the people who are supposed to help me literally sing and laugh in my face as I cry because I can't say what's really wrong. No one had an ill intent. They thought they were making light of a situation, or that I might laugh. And they definitely thought it was much funnier when I just cried more, or stormed out of the room.