#impulse control

[biblicallyaccuratemoth]

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I'M TRYING TO SAVE FOR MY JANUARY CON.

[foldingfittedsheets]

A basic human skill that people usually lock down around the age of three or four is impulse control. To conceptualize an action and it’s consequences before taking it. Maybe considering how that action affects other people. We then refine it through most of our childhood.

When I was a teenager my hold on this ability became… tenuous. I became a volatile and dangerous creature.

It’s probably not unique to me, but I had a perfect storm in terms of mental upsets. I had just mastered enough basic social skills, so I finally had a strong group of friends when my dad suddenly needed to move for work. Ripped away from my support network, blooming with hormones, I was dragged to Arizona. I was always a child of forests and mist and suddenly everything was hot, dry, and extremely pointy and aggressive.

Additionally to being abruptly transplanted I found myself an object of affection in a way I’d never been before. Lonely and desperate to make friends the only people who wanted to spend time with me had romantic designs. I just wanted to figure out my shit but I had a baby lesbian flirting with increasing aggression in art, a soft boy making heart eyes at me in biology, a senior nerd asking if I wanted to play Halo at his house and could he hold my hand?

Reader, I snapped. I didn’t want this romantic attention but I also didn’t want to be alone. My brain coped the only way it knew how, by simply cutting out decision making. Any action was the right action to take.

It started with the boy in biology. I’d stolen his pencil out of mischief and to my overwhelming fury instead of trying to steal it back he just softened his eyes and chucked me gently under my chin, a gesture so overtly sweet and romantic that I saw red.

I stabbed him with his own pencil.

I honestly and truly have no memory of it. It happened as fast as a snake striking and I was instantly filled with terrified remorse. Unfortunately that manifested as psychotic giggling.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t- I don’t know why- I’m so sorry!” I said, while hysterically laughing. I ended up having lodged some graphite in his palm and had to tweeze it out with my nails while apologizing furiously. (It’s very important to note here that he forgave me and we’re still friends)

That was weird, I thought. Why didn’t I think before I stabbed someone?

The next event was equally catastrophic, and I had even less reason to do it. In gym with two girls I was tentatively befriending, we were warming up running laps. I started racing one of them. At breakneck speed we were sprinting around the gym.

This time, there was a blip of thought before I fucked up. I should get the other girl! I have no idea why or what the plan was but I turned on a swivel and body checked the other girl. We both fell down in immense pain. I think that’s the moment I broke my tailbone. Her knees were horribly bruised and she looked at me in bewildered pain. “Why did you do that?!”

I had no idea. I apologized and helped her up, both of us hobbling like newborn horses, bruised and hurting.

By this time there’d been enough social upheavals that I was reduced to spending time with some girls I had nothing in common with and low key disliked. Sat at a table listening to this girl talk about how she wanted to be a stripper when she grew up I thought, You’d better put the cap on before you throw it.

I then chucked my empty water bottle directly at her face. It bounced off her forehead with a bop! that would have made a sound mixer weep at its perfection.

All eyes turned to me is startlement. I stared back at her, stunned by my own action, just as confused as everyone else at the table as to why I’d done that. One of the girls to my right said, “Were you trying to hit that fly?”

“Yes!” I lied, “I’m sorry, I thought I could hit the fly!”

Everyone laughed at my antics and I joined in rather than admit I had just chucked something at her for no reason.

Things did start to improve after that. I solidified a friendship with the girl I’d raced (who I developed a massive crush on and ten years later would go on to date). My outbursts turned more whimsical rather than aggressive. Like accosting a girl leaving the cafeteria to look deeply into her eyes and say with great compassion, “It’s going to be alright.”

My new friend and I snuck into the van that delivered our cafeterias baked goods and lay giggling in the back. When I’d impulsively hopped in she’d joined me and made it a game.

After a year in Arizona I broke down crying to my mother, an act of great desperation, and we ended up moving back home. My impulse control returned to normal teenage levels and life resumed in a happier state of mind.

[giantmonster]

[minusninelives]

⚡️impulse control

lando/oscar, 4K, flash lando, nightwing oscar, superheroes

The fight is over before it feels like it started. Just bits of debris on the floor, groans of half-conscious criminals, and Lando looking like he barely broke a sweat. He probably didn't.

It’s dangerous, how natural this feels.

~

So, I saw this fanart by @otakuhotpiastri and I couldn’t help myself. A fic had to be written. And since I was a huge fan of Young Justice, I’m very familiar with Birdflash. It needed a Landoscar incarnation.

Also, this fic couldn’t have been possible without my dear @toribellsa who also made this gorgeous moodboard 🧡

[pargery]

When you get free will suddenly for the first time in your existence, there's a whole impulse control issue that kicks in.

-- Platform Decay by Martha Wells

[mactiir]

So much of not being a shitty person is just like. Impulse control. For instance my girlfriend has this cutting board. This cutting board is a fucking insult. I cannot describe to you how much I hate this cutting board. It is ancient, a hand me down from her mom's old catering business. It is a gigantic slab of ugly white plastic the thickness of my thumb. It's absurdly big. It's too big to fit in our normal, house-sized dishwasher, probably cuz it's a retired restaurant cutting board designed for a fucking industrial sterilizer. It is also too big to comfortably handwash in our normal, house-sized sink, because it's designed for restaurant sinks the size of small children, so every time I have to clean it I end up with water all over fucking everything, and it's a material that's particularly slippery so I usually drop it at least once. Every time I am confronted with cleaning this mockery of a kitchen accessory I fantasize about hiding it. My girlfriend is super short so if I put it up a high shelf somewhere she would never find it (fitting it on the shelf is a different matter). She's also a pack rat so I could hide it in her piles of unaccessed junk, where she wouldn't find it for possibly years. I wouldn't have to touch or see the stupid thing for months and my girlfriend would be forced to use normal-sized cutting boards that don't force me to use my anger management strategies when I clean them!!

But I don't. Cuz this is her favorite cutting board. ("It's so roomy!" She says.) It really helps her do food prep because she can see everything laid out all at once. And it helps her keep from knocking shit onto the counters (she's quite clumsy).

So the cutting board gets washed and it goes back in the cabinet where she can find it so that I can once again find it on the counter after dinner. Mocking me. Because I don't need to control other people's shit to maintain a sense of control over my life. My eye may be twitching and my kitchen may be wet but my relationship is flourishing. Q.E.D.

[orchardthieve]

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[disability-kitties]

Antisocial Personality Disorder Kitty mock up design

Designer: @alexandraisyes

Flag Design: @aspdsolace

This Kitty is part of our Personality Disorder and Neurodivergent series!