@wanderlustandtethers - Tumblr Blog

Hi

I’m amidst a larger personal project of retrieving passwords, changing passwords, closing accounts, getting 2FA and better password management and so after some layers of digging and resetting some things, I unearthed the email address this was attached to.

I just looked through my drafts and there is so much journaling and vivid recollections of specific days, many of which now feel like a blur. I’ve added to my running list on this project to copy/paste those things out and save them elsewhere.

How are you?

wanderlustandtethers

(I was reworking bookmarks on my trusty dusty old laptop and was reminded once again that I have this account still)

Two and a half years later I can report that getting 1Password & Authy, taking inventory of all known accounts / logins out in the wild, and tightening everything up / closing things out, was worthwhile. Around this same time I also got a bunch of airtags for the household - keys, wallets, bikes... started a journal x index card system for myself, and kinda made a few bajillion-point-turns in life since.

Probably no surprise but I am AuDHD, my frontal lobe is finally ready, and I'm just kind of forever living as a katamari collecting coping tools / skills / self-accommodations accordingly because what works one day / situation / scenario may never work again and I have to keep trying. These efforts were the start of a critical trajectory shift.

I'm still here.

We* now live in the city of brotherly love, the west part, almost two years now. I'm 42. E's a tween. I'm finishing up a paralegal studies & eDiscovery program this year. I was doing stenography (with aim for CART services and maybe some depositions) before lockdown and beyond, but I burned out and pivoted, to nutshell. Might return to it when my brain can categorize it as a hobby-realm thing. It got to be a bit too consuming when I was putting myself on a timeline to finish and it kept telescoping out (it's like learning a musical instrument AND a new language in one thing... and I couldn't predict or plan the intersection of meeting the speed x accuracy requirements).

I am now post-three foot surgeries in the last 2 years. I ride a bike everywhere and hang out in parks, cemeteries and historical gardens (and sometimes the community garden behind E's school [oh I had also homeschooled for ~2 years? That was never the plan but it all fell together with lockdown x my long covid]). Cocoon.

We get a lot of sunlight in our home and have a lot more space and increasingly long stretches of nervous system regulation. We go fishing and kayaking sometimes at one of our favorite places to be in the city, but at a baseline we're always on bike/s together for everything. There's public transit here too but... not as fun.

Anyway, good changes, I'm glad to still be here to experience it.

*P's back and forth to/from NYC for his work. He's got a business partner and LLC and half a year after we moved, they landed a lease on warehouse space to provide storage in addition to their other art services. So there's that! He is usually here weekends and some extended ones like into the wee hours of a Wednesday, or, starting late on a Thursday etc.

<3

Hi

I’m amidst a larger personal project of retrieving passwords, changing passwords, closing accounts, getting 2FA and better password management and so after some layers of digging and resetting some things, I unearthed the email address this was attached to.

I just looked through my drafts and there is so much journaling and vivid recollections of specific days, many of which now feel like a blur. I’ve added to my running list on this project to copy/paste those things out and save them elsewhere.

How are you?

Is this still my blog?

Do I b-log here?

#Who is here anymore

kontrazvedka-deactivated2019031

Lol

redmachasacorns-deactivated2018

“ I’m telling your Mom”

nuggetsphere

There’s no fucking way the modern version of antifa existed in fucking copenhagen in the 1990s, It’s gotta be some other group

chrisdornerfanclub

Antifa has been around for decades. They’re not new. They especially revved up organizing in the 1990s due to the resurgence of fascist street gangs across America and Europe. Antifa already existed when Obama was President. The only difference is the public visibility of anti fascism due to the public visibility of fascism.

Also antifa isn’t really a centralized group as much as a series of localized fronts. They existed throughout Europe often in far stronger numbers than existed in America at that same time.

cultural-antifascism-deactivate

throwback to antifa defending Seattle in 2015 from hammerscum

kameratar

Antifa was really huge in Europe in the 90s and basically destroyed the nazi movement in Norway.

eroticcannibal

Antifa just means antifacist, we’ve been around as long as facism has

cherryseltzer

it’s crazy that people (dumbasses and their conservative parents) think ‘antifa’ is a club with membership or something that is monolithic and homogenous. while there are local antifa groups in lots of places, it really just means ‘antifascist’ and ‘antifa’ has existed as long as… ‘fa’ has.

deafgaming

I was accepted to attend TEDx this year, but they will not provide me CART (closed-captioning services for deaf people). 3 minutes. That’s how long the director considered my request and composed an email stating their “experience in and capability for providing these services is limited” and therefore they would not look into providing me an accessible environment. They want to make sure I can “enjoy the event to the fullest extent,” yet couldn’t be bothered with disability accommodations.

We need to do better than this y’all.

deafgaming

Update: After writing an unfortunate number of emails, dropping a few terms like “reasonable accommodations,” and even providing a list of potential CART vendors, TEDx has agreed to provide disability accommodations. Thank you everyone for your advocacy and outpouring support! They messed with the wrong deaf girl 😂

wanderlustandtethers

Oh snap, I should have dug deeper before my last post!

deafgaming

I was accepted to attend TEDx this year, but they will not provide me CART (closed-captioning services for deaf people). 3 minutes. That’s how long the director considered my request and composed an email stating their “experience in and capability for providing these services is limited” and therefore they would not look into providing me an accessible environment. They want to make sure I can “enjoy the event to the fullest extent,” yet couldn’t be bothered with disability accommodations.

We need to do better than this y’all.

wanderlustandtethers

This (CART) is the kind of service I would like to provide once I’m through with my Steno program. I’m just searching through hashtags a little and came across this; i want to say “how shortsighted of TED to not have a network of folks for this” but it smells like something they could but decidedly won’t do.

kestrel-tree

Ridiculous yet effective ways to deal with Executive Dysfunction

Dealing with executive dysfunction and ADHD becomes so much easier when you stop trying to do things the way you feel like you should be able to do them (like everyone else) and start finding ways that actually work for you, no matter how “silly” or “unnecessary” they seem.

For years my floor was constantly covered in laundry. Clean laundry got mixed in with dirty and I had to wash things twice, just making more work for myself. Now I just have 3 laundry bins: dirty (wash it later), clean (put it away later), and mystery (figure it out later). Sure, theoretically I could sort my clothes into dirty or clean as soon as I take them off and put them away straight out of the dryer, but realistically that’s never going to be a sustainable strategy for me.

How many garbage bins do you need in a bedroom? One? WRONG! The correct answer is one within arms reach at all times. Which for me is three. Because am I really going to get up to blow my nose when I’m hyperfocusing? NO. In allergy season I even have an empty kleenex box for “used tissues I can use again.” Kinda gross? Yeah. But less gross than a snowy winter landscape of dusty germs on my desk.

I used to be late all the time because I couldn’t find my house key. But it costs $2.50 and 3 minutes to copy a key, so now there’s one in my backpack, my purse, my gym bag, my wallet, my desk, and hanging on my door. Problem solved.

I’m like a ninja for getting pout the door past reminder notes without noticing. If I really don’t want to forget something, I make a physical barrier in front of my door. A sticky note is a lot easier to walk past than a two foot high cardboard box with my wallet on top of it.

Executive dysfunction is always going to cause challenges, but often half the struggle is trying to cope by pretending not to have executive dysfunction, instead of finding actual solutions.

roachpatrol

i left cabinet doors open all my life and couldn’t make myself stop leaving them open until i figured out my subconscious just wants to know where everything is at a glance. i put labels on each cabinet door for what was behind the cabinet and after that i was a lot better at closing them.

showers are hard for me because they involve a lot of steps to get in and out. buying cleaning hand wipes helps me stay a lot cleaner and happier when i’m too tired or distracted to make myself be a normal person– they’re faster and involve way less prep time, decision making, and unpleasant physical sensations.

i have disordered eating because, again, getting food is complicated, much less cooking anything. buying 10-12$ of cliff bars at a go and keeping them in my room by my bed gives me a headstart on breakfast and lets me take my meds on time. otherwise i would lie in bed, not taking my meds because i had to eat, and not eating because i was too tired and nauseous from being hungry to get out of bed.

‘just try harder’ is not a solution. figuring out the actual problem and addressing it is the solution.

’normal’ isn’t the goal. you can’t be normal. it’s too late, but you know what, fuck normal. trying to be normal is going to kill you. ‘functional’ is the goal, and you can be functional. you can kick ass at functional. and that’s a lot better.

copperbadge

When I talk about how there is no universal system for Keeping Your Shit Together, and how it’s more important to find a system that works for you, this is exactly the kind of thing I mean.

My keys hang on the door so I literally can’t leave my apartment without touching them. My socks kept getting everywhere when I kept them with my other clothes, so instead I now keep them in a little hutch in the kitchen, where I keep all my shoes. All my silverware is in jars on my kitchen island so I can see clearly when I am out of forks. When I didn’t want to put on my socks to go running, I bought running shoes that didn’t require socks. There are people who would find all of the above unworkable and/or appalling but they don’t have to live my life and I do.

Find what works for you and work it. Doesn’t matter if it’s weird or unusual or not as healthy as some weird ideal which is probably just a marketing tool anyway. If it works, work it.

wanderlustandtethers

All sounds ab right.

allsadnshit

when you’re a kid and you’re feeling weird and detached and you fall asleep in the late afternoon with school clothes still on and you wake up and its dark and dinner is almost done and time feels like a thick jelly

cherryseltzer

i did this every day and would wake up with a start at 7pm thinking it was 7am and i was late for school. every single day. even as an adult with chronic illness, i can safely say that there is no exhaustion like teenage after school exhaustion.

wanderlustandtethers

This was me in high school except I did do activities like 1-2 dance classes a week, and soccer. I miss actually following through on exhaustion with sleep. My body just fights sleep.

I don’t even know who is here anymore

But I’m compelled to drop a couple updates. One is that I’ve been getting the ball rolling to enroll in school and it’s looking like I’m going to be doing a court reporting program after sitting lukewarmly on the idea of dental hygiene for like, a decade. I’m aiming for September but they’re trying to push me to begin in May which is difficult for me to do for a lot of reasons. I had a meeting with admissions on Wednesday and part of my to-do list takeaway from that meeting was to get my high school transcripts. I got home that day and found out my high school was the latest location of a mass shooting. Friends since kindergarten are on staff there; my sister-in-law’s father is a coach and security there. Shit is incredibly grim in many ways and I say this based on well, 1: duh. and 2: the alumni mobilize group is infiltrated with folks spreading fake news and fostering infighting and it is breaking my brain. Trying my best to pull myself away from THAT and focus on the actual, current students, who are incredibly heartbreaking and heartening to watch, read, etc. Emma Gonzalez is particularly stand-out. I feel awful for these kids and for all of us who are stuck in this nightmare.

Anyway, hello, I’m still here.

austinstatesman

Outdoor company Patagonia has sued to block President Donald Trump’s cuts to Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument.

Zit as commemoration of the night my child fidgeted for 2+ hours, fell asleep for a minute then woke thirsty, hungry, and asking why it isn't morning yet; and of the morning I got her to school anyway, returned home to nap, and then remembered I had another kindergarten tour I wanted to hit and ran back out for 2 hours. I'm also trying to sub-in tea for coffee to stay mellow buuuut I may have to make some coffee after all. 💤 (at Ridgewood, Queens)

closet-keys

One thing I think is useful to conceptualize when thinking about the severity of depression is figuring out what counts as a ‘task’ to your brain

for example, healthy people outlining the tasks they need to do that day might be something like

- class - work - homework

if a healthy person is having a low energy day, maybe it becomes

- make breakfast - go to class - class - go to work - work - come home from work - work on an essay - do 2 readings

a depressed person, on a high energy day will probably see that same day as

- make breakfast - eat breakfast - take meds - shower - get dressed - walk to bus - take bus … etc

a depressed person, on a low energy day will see that same day as

- wake up - get out of bed - walk to bathroom - use bathroom - stand back up - walk to kitchen - open fridge - take out juice - set on counter - go to cabinet - reach up arm - take down glass - unscrew lid of juice carton - pour juice - drink the juice - finish the juice …etc

the sort of chronic exhaustion manifests in how each ‘task’ takes a certain amount of energy and when you have depression, what begins to take that amount of energy- and thus, cognitively count as a ‘task’- are smaller and smaller subdivisions of what other people consider tasks.

And the more ‘tasks’ you do, the less energy you have, and the smaller the subdivisions must be to take equivalent amounts of energy. And the longer that “to do” list of tasks is, the more exhausting and overwhelming and hopeless it feels, which creates a feedback loop of dysfunction.

So say our depressed person on a low energy day gets all the way to finishing their glass of juice. They’ve actually gotten through a lot of tasks! They’ve tried really hard.

But to a healthy person, even on a low energy day, that probably looks like not having done anything- not having gotten through any tasks. And when our depressed person is surrounded by healthy people, they will likely internalize that they haven’t done anything, and further that they can’t complete any tasks no matter how hard they try. And that feeds worthlessness and suicidal ideation

That, I think, is why it’s so important to encourage your depressed and chronically low-energy friends when they accomplish tasks, even if they’re operating at a level of subdivision that you don’t recognize. It is an accomplishment to get water and actually drink it for some folks. It is an accomplishment to get to class or to work.

And acknowledging how hard someone is trying and how much energy they’re putting towards accomplishing those tasks can make a huge difference in whether they feel worthless and hopeless or whether they feel like it’s worth it to keep doing what they can.

corvidcove

And as someone with both physical disabilities and mental illness (specifically depression & anxiety), this applies even more, because some days even when your mind is cooperating, your body won’t. Able bodied people don’t understand why showering is such a big deal for me, but it’s because of all the different steps, and whether or not my mind AND body can handle each individual part of the larger process.