Blocked

A slice of life blog exploring a questioning demi(a)sexual's journey to better  mental health, and occasionally going on about trying to be a writer. I am recently ADHD diagnosed and still learning about it what that means for me.

[demiblocked]

I think one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made for my first dnd campaign is creating a character who, by design, I wanted to be intelligent and very thorough with researching and keeping track of legal and bureaucratic webs of intrigue because I personally find people who can keep up and understand and shake out loopholes in those kinds of situations to Solve A Problem Legally like that to be so unattainably put-together and smart that it’s like a form of magic to me. Because I, personally, literally don’t have the mental cognizance to read and keep up with texts well enough to learn how things work. 

The ADD bars me from processing, let alone retaining, the information, it bars me from focusing long enough to make (or even THINK to make) notes to myself so that I can remember, and makes me entirely intolerant of the frustration (in a way that literally, unnaturally compromises my mood and affects my ability to solve problems) that results from not being able to put two and two together as easily as everyone else. Not only that, note-taking is the absolute bane of my ADD, and the subject matter itself is too unstimulating for me to focus on reliably no matter how relevant it is to the game. At all times my brain is “PLAY FIGHT WIN DRAMA RP” and if it starts to drift into needing to understand anything government or law or even tactics-related above a middle school level, it spirals into irritability fed by impatience and frustration with my own ignorance. It straight-up resists any attempt at trying to learn, shuts down, I become irritable, and I feel a very deep, unnatural feeling of “I do not want to learn this.”

so I’ve made a goddamn character proficient at being everything I’m mentally incapable of pretending to be and have to solve entirely text-based problems with incomplete information, and figure out how to fill in the blanks for things I don’t understand, while trying to play a character who is supposed to have a better understanding than I’m capable of having while everyone else is apparently following along just fine.

ADHD impairs my cognizance and information processing so badly, that I’ve come to think of people who can grasp and retain complex concepts as fucking magicians, and have a desire to just. be someone with a brain that actually fucking works. I wanna be clever. 

but the caveat of playing a character who is smart when you’re not smart is that you have to be fucking smart and keep track of everything and I’m not smart and I’m not organized and any attempt to change that is met with resistance to the tune of “I don’t feel like it, it’s not fun” and my embarrassment and poor self esteem keeps me from reaching out for help, and even if I did I wouldn’t pay attention or be Interested anyway. 

I should’ve made a dumb barbarian. 

[demiblocked]

i can’t decide if I want to/should postpone my dental cleaning for a couple more months because of how bad things are in my state. 

can’t tell how much of my indecision is I’m Uncomfortable and how much is I Don’t Feel Like It. =_= 

[demiblocked]

I’m worried that if I have to quarantine through the holiday season and not see my family at all this year, that I’ll become too depressed to care about quarantining and fly anyway. 

I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas alone. Taking the time and spending the money to see my family is self care for me, but what do I do when self care clashes with public health advisories? What do I do when following public health advisory becomes detrimental to my mental health to the point I don’t care anymore? 

[blooooom]

there’s a misconception that grief only happens when we lose people. this is not true. we can grieve circumstances, relationships, missed opportunities. in fact, sometimes when you find yourself plagued with waves of emotion from sadness to melancholy you may be grieving yourself. the version of yourself that you might have been if things had been different, or if only you had said something, or if someone had stood up for you.

[secondlina]

I drew this very specific ace artist meme with Mothman because I wanted to feel some happiness specific to me.

[demiblocked]

ADHD and Motivation

[teenagerposts]

sexual attraction: wow I wanna fuck that

romantic attraction: wow I wanna date that

sensual attraction: wow I wanna cuddle that

aesthetic attraction: wow that exists

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I make one trip per week to the grocery store and that’s the extent of my face-to-face interaction with other humans for the past 2 months with the exception of the two video calls I’ve had with my therapist. Otherwise it’s all over the phone with my folks or online with friends. But I feel like a weirdo for realizing I’m not suffering one fraction compared to what it sounds like other people are feeling. 

like I don’t feel like I’m going crazy and I don’t feel super lonely. I was reeling a little bit the first month and had some spiked anxiety for a bit but once that settled... I really haven’t noticed myself feeling bad at all just staying in, getting my work done, chatting with friends online, and engaging with my hobbies. I’ve had a couple voice chats with friends from work over Animal Crossing but even that I feel like is just an extra thing. otherwise it all just sorta feels like how I was already living. 

meanwhile everywhere I look I see memes and jokes about how bonkers everyone feels staying isolated-- and they’re usually people who even live with another human being!-- and have nothing to do. 

I feel fine. But I dunno, also sort of makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with me. is there something broken up in my head or am I just not a properly social animal like humans are supposed to be? 

[demiblocked]

Why is every adult ASD test have questions that include “that other people think is [x]” or “that seems [x] to other people”?? 

I don’t...... fucking know ...what other people thin k.. that’s wh y .... I’ve come looking 

[demiblocked]

Anxiety’s been through the roof this week, I don’t understand it but it’s making super hyper-emotional, like in the “Everything that goes wrong is a reflection of my value as a person” and “Everything everybody says is a personal affront to me” sort of way 

Not even remotely close to PMS time either 

[demiblocked]

who wants to send me some TP 

[demiblocked]

Bad time for PMS to breakthrough the zoloft as my company runs around figuring out how to get everyone set up to work remote and I fixate irrationally on my fear of grocery stores shutting down before I have a chance to get what I need and also my fear of not being in control of my situation, while my thumb continues its tremor every time I try to draw for more than a minute and knowing maintenance will be having to jackhammer my upstairs neighbor’s patio floor at a yet-undetermined time, terrifying my cat while I am trying to work from home in an environment that is already inherently distracting :) 

[demiblocked]

I have tennis (computer) elbow and, I guess, a very fatigued hand entirely unrelated to the tennis elbow. I have been given a laundry list of hand stretches to do multiple times per day and advised to take as many breaks as possible and draw, text (with my thumb), play video games, or use the mouse as little as possible-- or at least find a way to do those things without closing/tensing/squeezing with the thumb. Also ice. 

on the plus side there’s no sign of CTS, my grip strength is totally fine (and for some reason stronger in my dominant right than my left, which I was told is unusual for the dominant hand) and I have pretty fingers. 

I do have quite a rough time describing to lay persons just how little activity I partake in aside from sitting at the computer but the physical therapist was able to sound concerned in like a maternal way without sounding judgy. 

but the tremor in my thumb isn’t a nerve thing at least (or there’d be burning/tingling). it’s a muscle thing. she sounded very relieved on my behalf that I had no pain aside from in my arm after she beat the hell out of it with the myofascial scraper thing.

[demiblocked]

updates, updates

I’m having issues with my hand again. A muscle in the base of my palm (on the median nerve) has been randomly twitching, causing my whole thumb to tremor and me to have to stop what I’m doing (drawing, using the mouse, my phone) til it stops. There are no symptoms associated with CTS so I can only think of a nerve being pinched or irritated somewhere along the line and it just won’t let up. I saw a chiropractor and massage therapist and their work stopped it for a week before it started up again, and in the past couple days it’s become more frequent. I scheduled an appointment with the physical hand therapist today hoping they can get to the root of the issue (and won’t tell me “idk talk to your doctor”). 

My knee has also been hurting for several weeks and I can’t figure out what I did to it. I reached a point yesterday where I panicked myself into crying about all of it (the shame of which made me cry more). All the what-ifs and I-should-haves and my-body-is-failing and money and time and confusion and worry over what are two probably very minor issues but are just more proof I’m not living my life correctly and I still have yet more changes to work on. 

mostly I just want my hand to stop...being weird. I need it to work.

[demiblocked]

The depression appears to be sneaking back. 

[demiblocked]

the RSD is iNTENSE this weekend !!!!!! 

[demiblocked]

Brain: I have three important tasks for you. Here they are.

Me: okay. I see. Right. Got it. Go back to that first one we'll start there.

Brain: first what

Me: what you just told me. Of the two things. Three things?

Brain: what things?

Me: the tasks you wanted to think about!

Brain: 🎵I live for the applaaause 🎵 applause 🎶 applause, I live for the applause-plause🎶 live for the applause-plause~🎵