#poss.speaks

[avpdpossum]

attention avpd/ocd/adhd/social anxiety havers, perfectionists, overthinkers, people pleasers, and anyone prone to freezing up in moments when you really need to take action:

for the love of all that’s holy, forget about that stupid advice and just do it wrong.

i’ve been unemployed for months because i moved and have yet to find a job in my new area, and you know why it’s been so hard (on top of the everything else making the job market a living hell right now)?

because i heard a bunch of advice telling me to chance my resume up to tailor it to every job i apply to, and i got overwhelmed by that because let’s be honest, that’s SO much work. but i heard that advice from so many places that i convinced myself it was The Only Way to apply for jobs, and that of course just led to me not applying for any jobs at all. tonight is the first time in two weeks that i finally sent out some applications because i finally sat down and said “fuck it, i’m not getting any jobs by sitting here wishing i could do it right, so i might as well do it wrong.”

so whatever it is that you’ve been trying to do and feeling overwhelmed by, please throw away all the extra overwhelming advice you’ve been given about the Perfect Way To Do It and just do it in whatever way you can manage. half-asses is still done. done badly is still done. you still gain more from doing a shitty job at something than you do from doing nothing at all.

i promise, the world isn’t going to end when you do something less-than-perfect. no one is going to hate you for it. in all likelihood, nobody will even notice or care that you didn’t follow whatever mostly arbitrary guideline you’ve been torturing yourself over. that advice is for people who have already been doing the thing and are struggling to see results, not for people who are struggling to do the thing in the first place.

whatever standard someone else set for the thing you need to do, it’s probably bullshit anyway, so just do it in the way you can. if the alternative is not doing it at all, you’re not going to be any worse off if you just make the best effort you can muster and call it a day.

when you’re not doing anything at all, any action is an improvement. you’re allowed to do it wrong. it’ll be okay. just get it done and let yourself rest.

[avpdpossum]

the “i can’t seem to connect with other people, i must be fundamentally broken or not trying hard enough” -> “turns out there’s nothing wrong with me, i’m just autistic” -> “all the autistic people i know get along so well together and i still can’t connect with any of them, maybe i really am just fundamentally broken” -> “why didn’t anyone tell me avpd exists, this explains everything” pipeline is so real.

if your social skills are dogshit even compared to other socially anxious autistics, i see you. i am you. it’s fucking rough out here but at least we’re in these trenches together.

[avpdpossum]

small victories.

walking up to a group of people i know when i see them all talking together

not hiding the drinks i got from the vending machine when i walk by people

picking a new seat after sitting down because i realized it wasn’t comfortable

smiling at or saying hi to someone i know instead of waiting for them to do it first

pushing through boredom instead of immediately giving up because it feels like i can’t focus

looking at random things in my surroundings while waiting for things instead of immediately sticking my face in my phone to avoid interactions while i wait

realizing my bf isn’t secretly implying judgmental things with certain questions and deciding i’m going to try not to give into the instinct to defend myself next time

making eye contact with and talking to a professor like i normally would the day after she called attention to me in class instead of listening to the embarrassment and resentment that tells me i can’t trust her enough to ever interact with her again

getting better at letting myself keep stimming even if people can see/hear me

getting better at singing along to music or as part of a joke

being the first/only person to raise my hand for some things in class

sitting next to people in class instead of always leaving a seat between me and the nearest person

sitting next to the same person every day in one of my classes and trusting that she actually wants to keep sitting with me

stopping whatever i’m doing as a distraction/procrastination when i realize i’m not actually enjoying doing it anymore

doing things that might make me feel a little better when my brain starts going dark instead of letting the feeling pull me in because i think there’s nothing i can do to change it

sending the fucking email (and letting it be concise instead of couching everything in overexplanations)

there are so many things that are so simple and mindless for other people that are so fucking hard when your brain is allergic to Doing And Feeling Things. but it turns out a lot of them are kinda possible once you start learning how to push back against the part of you that immediately shuts down.

i feel like i gave up on myself for so long but now i’m realizing i don’t want the path of least resistance, i want something much more fulfilling, and god knows i’m not anywhere close to that yet but i think i am stumbling vaguely in the right direction and that feels so fucking good compared to where i started.

i fear we are more capable of change than we think we are, it’s just far more agonizingly uncomfortable than anyone wants it to be and it’s really hard to actually do it until you’ve found a way to convince your brain that the discomfort isn’t going to kill you.

[avpdpossum]

current mental state

[avpdpossum]

can we talk more about avpd being a (proposed) schizospec disorder? because i almost never see that theory talked about but i wish it was. like…

avpd makes me censor my thoughts because i think someone might hear what i’m thinking and see what a horrible person i am on the inside or judge me for thinking embarrassing things.

avpd makes me so afraid of someone walking in on me doing something i Shouldn’t Be Doing that my brain twists background noise into the sounds of whispers and footsteps behind me.

avpd makes me so worried about people staring at me that in my peripheral vision, anyone near me looks like they’re already staring at me, and it’s only when i look at them directly that i realize they’ve been looking in a totally different direction the whole time.

avpd makes me so convinced of how much everyone must secretly hate me that i often start thinking everyone secretly wants to hurt me too, to the point where i’ve had panic attacks from a person walking too close behind me because i feel like they’re getting ready to attack me (when i haven’t had any kind of trauma that would create that fear), and the paranoia just serves to reinforce my need to avoid people.

avpd makes me lose my ability to speak or reduces it to nothing more than one word answers only when spoken to, turning the thoughts i wanted to express into a jumble that’s impossible to turn into words or just throwing them away completely and making my mind go blank, so i end up just staring at people silently or even acting like i don’t see them standing there at all (not on purpose but because my brain won’t let me engage with them).

avpd makes me look damn near emotionless around everyone but my safe person (and sometimes even around my safe person) because showing my emotions would be far too vulnerable for its liking, so it completely takes away my ability to express them.

and i could keep going! there are so many things i experience because of avpd that i’ve seen really closely reflected in the experiences of schizospec people. i don’t know how common these kinds of things are in avpd overall, but they’re a really prominent part of my experience with it, so when i found out that some research suggested it could be considered a schizospec disorder itself, that made so much sense to me! and i’d be so curious to see how many other avoidants have dealt with this stuff but haven’t talked about it because it’s never mentioned as being part of avpd.

[avpdpossum]

an incomplete list of things my avpd says i’m not allowed to do:

laugh at something on tv before someone else laughs at it first

say the answers to jeopardy questions out loud when i know them

visibly react to getting hurt

sing or scream at full volume, even while alone

fall asleep in the car when no one else is sleeping

cook while other people are home

ask someone if they’re okay or try to figure out what might help them

express affection to my immediate family or say anything sincere to them

blush (which does happen to come with the territory of being embarrassed 24/7)

fart, burp, or hiccup audibly

sneeze or sniff too many times

“look cold” when it’s cold out

raise my arms if there might be any kind of sweat stains on my shirt

“act horny” while actively making out with or having sex with my boyfriend

reply to someone when i’m not 100% sure what they said

ask someone to repeat themselves when i didn’t hear them

break a rule i’ve been told to follow

follow a rule everybody else is breaking

smile at, greet, or even just look at someone i know when i see them

suggest a restaurant to go to or a movie to watch

talk about liking something without knowing the general public perception of it

form my own political/social opinions and stick to them when people disagree

retweet something that hasn’t already been retweeted by someone i follow

say anything in a group chat or server

or, in other words, literally just exist as a human being and live my life at all. i’m so fucking tired.

[avpdpossum]

the avpd+ocd grad student combo means that sometimes you will be forced to submit an assignment that you’re not particularly proud of because you wanted to go above and beyond but ended up only realistically being able to do a much more simple version, and the idea of your professor seeing the not-as-good version will make you want to take it all back and spend a few more months agonizing over it and maybe drop out while you’re at it, and submitting it anyway will make you feel inexplicably like you might cry and/or throw up, and unfortunately i’m learning that you kinda just have to let your brain throw a little tantrum over it for no reason

i wanted the feeling of being overwhelmed by the assignment to get BETTER when i submitted it, not WORSE, but i suppose i should’ve known myself better than that. i literally have Terminally Perfectionistic In A World Where Perfection is Impossible And Coping With That By Doing Absolutely Nothing Ever disease so i don’t really know what i was expecting from Doing Things Anyway. doing things that are ultimately good for your mental health and your future SUCKS ASS dude i hate it here

[avpdpossum]

anyone else feel like your meds just make you more stable, not actually more functional? people seem to think those are the same thing but they definitely aren’t and at this point, i’m almost starting to wonder if it would be better to go off my meds so people can see how bad things actually are because it seems like the only times people bother offering to help me function are the days when i forget my meds and me spending all day in bed crying on the phone with them about how my life is over reminds them that i do in fact actually need help with a lot of stuff.