#and i'm dealing with bad executive dysfunction recently

[honeebeeio]

Some recent pages from my sketchbook + my two oc Lex and Elmar because they are ruining my life 🥲

[doomhamster]

Okay so since my therapist is being no use: how would YOU deal with a situation where your brain isn't even allowing you to THINK about things that make you feel bad?

[Mental health stuff under cut: nothing obviously triggering but maybe avoid if you, too, are having a bad time.]

Let us posit that you have an impressive collection of things that make you feel bad. Even ones that shouldn't!

Family occasions? Make you think of previous family occasions that you've missed, and how you may miss this one because of your shitty mental health, and what a bad daughter/sister/aunt/in-law that makes you, and how your loved ones probably think you don't care about them at all. (And *do* you really? Wouldn't you be able to Find The Energy and Just Do This if you really loved them?)

The insurance payout you got a few months ago after years of poverty? Makes you think of the relentless flood of advice from your family, all of which amounts to "don't waste this on frivolous things like you always do". Makes you feel guilty because you bought that new bed, even though your back was starting to act up from how much the old one sucked. Makes you feel even *more* guilty because some of it went to living expenses during that one month recently when you literally did not manage to cook even once.

Let's not even get started on things that stress out even normal people, like bills and appointments and important phonecalls.

I've suffered from executive dysfunction all my life, so I'm no stranger to struggling with actually doing things, but now I can't even THINK about doing it. I set the alarms and I make the notes, and I hear them and I see them, and then I just... don't. Gone. I almost miss the old days of sitting for a whole day knowing you MUST do this thing and it really would only take five minutes, and not doing it, because at least then things didn't just get deleted from my awareness?

Does anyone have any advice on what to do about this? Books to read? Videos to watch? A clue about what the fuck is even going on, because at this point I'm starting to suspect some kind of stress-induced early dementia?

[Disclaimer: if you're going to type anything on the lines of "You really need to just pull yourself together and do it"? Don't. I can't brute-force this shit or I would have, and neither of us will enjoy my reaction to that kind of thoughtlessness.]

[herofics]

PLEASE write a comfort geto fic, preferably for fem but neutral is fine, just him comforting in anyway possible

A/N: It's life with the steel chair! At my head… multiple times in a row… with excessive force, lol. Non curse AU with Geto. The reader and Geto are not living together. I've also got this, this, this, this and this comfort post for him.

For the last four days, you'd done nothing but play Minecraft, along with the necessary things like sleeping and staying hydrated. Though the little sleep you had gotten, had been haunted by nightmares and your neighbors having loud arguments past midnight. So all in all, it had not been a good week for you.

Geto had been incredibly busy with work for the last week, so he hadn't had much time for you. He felt bad about it and now that the work week was finally coming to an end, he would be able to see you.

He had told you a few days in advance that he would be coming over on Friday, but you had totally forgotten about it before he texted you that he was on his way. You sighed. Were you up for seeing him? You hadn't taken a shower in days, and your apartment was a mess. Dirty laundry was strewn across the floor and you had like five different water cups next to your bed. You decided to take a quick shower and at least collect the dirty laundry into the hamper.

"See you soon" you texted back, before getting to work.

When your doorbell rang, you hurried to collect the mail from in front of the door before opening it. It was mostly a bunch of advertisements and sale slips, so you just placed them on your dining table, intending to go through them later, before hurrying back to the door to open it. You checked the peephole just in case, and saw your boyfriend standing outside your door. You took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Hi Suguru" you said as you opened the door.

"Hey love" he said as you stepped back to let him in.

Geto could immediately tell there was something wrong. You looked tired, and you had bags under your eyes.

"Everything okay?" he asked as he set his bag down and took his shoes off.

"Yeah. I'm just kinda tired, my neighbors have been keeping me up at night" you told him.

You weren't even really sure what the hell was going on with you. Yes, you were tired, and what you had told Geto wasn't a lie, but it wasn't exactly the whole truth either. You were just exhausted, and executive dysfunction was kicking your ass. You had been trying to get things done, but your brain just wasn't having it, and recently you had just gotten tired of fighting it constantly.

"That's been going on for a while now, hasn't it? Have you made a noise complaint?" Geto asked as you walked further into the apartment.

"I've emailed the building manager, and she said she'd send them a notice, but it helped for like two weeks, and now they're at it again" you sighed.

"I'm sorry you haven't been getting enough sleep. You could come to sleep over at my place" Geto suggested.

"I appreciate the offer, but I'm not really feeling like going anywhere, sorry"

"No worries" Geto smiled as he sat down on your couch.

You sat down next to him and leaned your head against his shoulder. It was nice having him there. You'd missed him more then you had realized. Suddenly you felt like absolute shit. You hated that you got like this sometimes. Why couldn't you just function like everyone else? Why did everything have to be so hard? Geto didn't deserve to deal with all your shit, he shouldn't have to deal with it. You moved away from him a bit and took a deep breath. You could feel him looking at you but you couldn't look him in the eye.

"Suguru?" you asked quietly.

"Yes love?"

"I… I think we should break up" you muttered.

Geto was stunned to say the least. Had he done something wrong? Had something happened?

"Can I ask why you're saying this now?" he asked very seriously.

"You shouldn't have to deal with all my crap, that's not what you signed up for. I haven't been doing well for a while now and I've been trying to keep it together but it's getting harder every day. I don't know how to deal with all this anymore" you sniffled.

"Oh love…" Geto sighed and moved closer to you, taking your hand. "I signed up for all of you, and that means the bad times too"

"I don't want to end up hurting you if I can't deal with my own crap" you started tearing up.

"You could never hurt me" he said and brushed the back of your palm with his thumb. "If you truly want to break up, I'll respect your decision, but I'm not going to leave you alone with this. You shouldn't be alone if you're having a hard time"

"It's not like I want to break up, but I don't want to be a burden" you asked as you started crying quietly.

"You're not a burden, you're the person I love, and I'll take all that comes with that" Geto smiled, placing a hand on your cheek and wiping away a tear from your cheek.

You just broke down sobbing. You felt like you didn't deserve him. He was such a good and kind person, and you were a damn mess a lot of the time. You were so happy you had him in your life. You finally raised your head to look at him, and all you could see in his eyes was love and worry for you.

Geto wasn't about to leave you alone with whatever it was you were going through. You'd been together for years, and he wasn't going to just abandon you and let you suffer alone. As long as he was able to, he would always be there for you. You'd gone through bad times before and even though it had been incredibly difficult sometimes, you'd gotten through it together. You would get through it again.

[arewebeholdingaman]

I've been talking about this as its been going on in my main blog but seeing as I brought it up late last year as an explanation for why I post so sporadically I think I may as well give a proper update here since this blog is what people know me for.

After about four years of trying to get the NHS to give a crap, I've finally been diagnosed with ADHD. The psychologist I was with for my mental health up until just recently was so kind and actually got the people dealing with my case to get off their asses and do something about me.

I've been completely bombing my college course the whole year and have been struggling to get anything done on my own the entire time. Basically was on track to fail because I hadn't finished any of the units. Its got to the point where the teacher of my course had to get my parents involved. humiliating enough, but the bright side to this is that I was marked as urgent in my need for medication and got my appointment within two weeks of diagnosis. I'm now finally being prescribed the vital stimulants I've needed my entire life! I'm glad to report that so far they're working pretty well. I might just pass after all, even with a month and a half left before we're out.

The whole thing with school has frankly put my mental state down the toilet, I'll be honest, but I'm being supported by the people around me and its nothing I haven't dealt with before. Things will undoubtedly improve once I've all my coursework done and can move on with my life so no need to fret about ol diogenes.

But yeah, I've got pretty bad ADHD and if you're familiar with it then you can probably guess from my story of academic liquid shitting that I struggle pretty badly with executive dysfunction. That's basically why my posting schedule is to fill the queue and post twice a day every day for maybe two or three weeks and then go almost radio silent for god knows how long. I'm not happy about it, but that's just how it is for me. Now I've got my medication though, god bless, which means I might be able to get a bigger backlog of men in my pocket. I'd like to actually see an empty inbox again lol

I'd love to say that I'm gonna get right back on the bipedal horse as soon as this is up because I really do love this blog and love entertaining and getting a giggle out of you tumblr bumblers but at the moment it's gotta be put on the back burner till I'm in the clear. Pisses me off but I'm being a good dog and taking my medicine and doing my work and when it's all done I'll try and put said medicine towards doing some fun things in the summer, like posting here.

I'll try and get a couple men in here and there for you guys tho ;>

[theskee]

Boy howdy I need to collect my thoughts somewhere.

So I posted a couple days ago that I'm going through the diagnostic process of figuring out this dysautonomia thing I'm dealing with. Symptoms include fatigue, intolerance of cold, orthostatic hypotension & intolerance, severe brain fog, dizziness, fainting...

The brain fog had gotten so bad I was starting to feel stuck and depressed, drowning in just. So much noise in my head.

My friend was worried about me and offered to let me try just a little bit of adderall because sometimes dysautonomia related brain fog is treated with adderall or ritalin. I was desperate for some kind of relief, so I agreed to give it a shot. The worst it would do was make me a little jittery for a while, maybe make my OCD a little more pronounced.

I can trace my OCD symptoms back to my childhood. They really began to pick up and get worse around the time of my parent's divorce. I started to develop obsessions and compulsions that were more pronounced around age 12. I was officially diagnosed in 2009 with OCD and for 5 years ran the gammut of medication changes. Zoloft, Cymbalta, Lexapro, Paxil, Buspar, Abilify-- so many meds that helped take the edge off the anxiety but nothing ever seemed to stick. We were running out of options and my doctor was like welp time for narcotics then which is something I said from the get go I didn't want to do but I was willing to try. I was drowning. We did Klonopin. It made me suicidal. I stopped it immediately after that and just... gave up.

The only thing that ever seemed to take the edge off my symptoms was Nicotine. I was hard in the paint for stimulants. I still am. Without a lot of caffiene and nicotine, I can't function at all. My brain is just too inundated with cyclical thoughts, my executive functioning plummets, I decided to give myself grace and go to therapy to learn coping strategies for my OCD and just gave myself the nicotine and decided it was better than constantly cycling medications that weren't working or would help a little and then stop.

In recent years with the rise of discussing ADHD online I have often told myself 'Ah yes. ADHD and OCD. Very similar symptoms and presentations sometimes! I relate but *I* just have OCD' and I have built my identity over the past sixteen years around my OCD, how it makes me relate to the world, how I cope with it, etc.

I had convinced myself it was not possible that I could have ADHD. I was determined to ignore the aspects that I found relatable.

All my restlessness and self soothing? OCD!

All my sensory sensitivities and seeking behaviors? OCD!

My ability to hyperfixate and hyperfocus? OCD!

All of my executive dysfunction? OCD!

And I definitely do have OCD. Very specifically, my obsessions revolve around contamination, time management, and death. That second one is important. I'm obsessively stressed out about time and being on time for things and watching clocks and making sure I never go time blind the thought of being late for anything send me into a tailspin of panic. So I'm never late for things. Ever. The only time I ever lose track of time is when I'm deep in hyperfocus on something that interests me.

I set alarms constantly to help me manage time. Recurring ones so I'm never late for stuff. I pre-stage things so I can just go. I get ready for appointments hours in advance and my brain automatically assumes it will take me much longer to get anywhere or do anything. I have whatever the opposite of time blindness is. Time hyperfixation I guess. Hyper-awareness.

And I knew, in the back of my mind, sometimes ADHD is misdiagnosed as OCD, but more frequently than that, they are co-occurring.

My personal belief about myself was, there's no possible way I have ADHD. One of the biggest justifications I had for that belief was that I am really good at managing my time. I keep a calendar for my appointments and I check it often. I have all my alarms. I over-prepare for things. I was positive that this was proof I do not have ADHD, and then I took Adderall.

And for the first time in decades my mind was quiet. It was like my OCD just took a vacation. My anxiety vanished and I felt clear headed. I felt calm and I was able to be patient. I wasn't panicking or obsessing or getting stuck in thought loops.

I took that Adderall to bust some brain fog, and what I got instead was a sudden realization that I might have been very very wrong about myself. I called my mother. She has autism and I swore I recalled her telling me that her father was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago. And she talked to me about it yesterday and told me that she wasn't sure if his diagnosis was official and that he may have self-diagnosed, but that my aunt, her sister, was officially diagnosed and has been on adderall for a couple years now and it's helped her significantly.

And I had a little bit of a crisis of identity for which my mother was very sympathetic because she went through the same thing when she was diagnosed with autism. I talked to her about what had happened and how I felt and she said "Well you've always been very high functioning. You had to be. I think it's worth pursuing. Do you have psychiatrist?" - Now for reference, my mother is *very* anti medication and is a Big Pharma conspiracy nut most of the time but when I talked to her about this she was actually extremely supportive and helped calm me down, told me everything would be okay, and that I should do this for myself. She said "When I found out I was autistic it was scary but I was able to figure out who I am and how my brain works and access the right resources and books to figure out how to be kinder to myself and it's worth it. You should do it."

I could hardly believe it.

This morning I was anxious and obsessing and started hopping into research about the co-occurrence of OCD.

ADHD is associated with earlier onset of OCD symptoms and poorer response to treatment Masi, 2010 (None of my medications worked and I've had OCD symptoms since childhood)

Co-occurring ADHD/OCD is associated with earlier onset of OCD symptoms, more severity of OCD symptoms, and more treatment resistance (Walitza et al., 2008). (Again, this aligns with my treatment experience.)

ADHD rates were elevated in those with childhood-onset OCD, and strong relationship between hoarding and ADHD. Sheppard et al., 2010 (In 2015 my hoarding was so bad I was buried in trash. I still have problems hoarding to this day...)

And as I've dug in more so much of my life is beginning to make sense. Co-Occurring OCD/ADHD leads to higher rates of self harm due to combined impulsivity (ADHD) and Compulsions (OCD) - which I have a history of.

Co-occurring OCD/ADHD leads to higher rates of eating disorders/disordered eating - which I have also struggled with.

Co-occurring OCD/ADHD leads to higher rates of sleep disturbances. I have had "idiopathic" insomnia for years, poor sleep for most of my life...

Cp-occurring OCD/ADHD leads to higher rates of GI issues -- DON'T EVEN GET ME FUCKING STARTED.

Higher sensitivity to sensory inputs, especially oral inputs (I had ARFID as a child and have had oral fixations my whole life.) -- the more I look the more so much begins to make sense and the more afraid I feel.

I don't know where I'm going with this other than I... Am really just. Shaken up. I'm re-visiting so much of my life. And I'm scared that I won't be believed enough to be given this medication that actually made things better because I function too well. I don't know. Anyway... That's. What's going on.

[this-is-krikkit]

Hello Kit

I am here for the fanfiction tropes rating game with: only one bed - arranged marriage - A/B/O - found family (feel free to skip one or more of those if it is too much, I got a bit carried away!)

And if it is ok for you, let's add: what is your favourite trope to read? What is your favourite trope to write?

Thank you 🩷

hey Kiyoshi! long time no see, i hope you're doing well ♥️ thank you for playing the trope rating game with me, these were fun! and nice idea to make me think of my fave tropes, that took me a second...

only one bed

rating: immediately A - love it (spend my time combing AO3 for it)

explanation: do i need to give you one??? i just. it's so yummy. it can be fluffy or smutty or angsty or all of the above, and ain't that the fucking goat for your otp? i just. YES. GIVE ME ALL THE ONLY ONE BED TROPE ALWAYS.

arranged marriage

rating: i guess B - like it (not one of my bigger cravings, but it can scratch a certain itch if I’m in the right mood)

explanation: i would have rated this one A if it wasn't unfortunately, in my experience, often lathered with problematic behaviors and depictions of male characters in particular (but not only as i've seen cringey takes on this for wlw ships too). i'm not targetting a specific ship or fandom for this, but there is a tendency in those AUs to have a power imbalance between the two characters that i find icky, esp in like royalty AUs. but i absolutely love this trope when it's both A and B being completely lost and unwilling participants in this but having to suck it up and deal with it, especially if there's an enemies to lovers vibe under there too. also.... arranged marriage and only one bed often go hand in hand, amirite?? 👀👀

A/B/O - omegaverse

rating: C - neutral (a good author might be able to sell it, but a bad one will kill it deader than dead)

explanation: sooo not neutral actually, but the definition still fits because i either hate it or love it. i've said it before, but i used to not even take anything that had to do with omegaverse into consideration. it just wasn't my thing, and i mean, i've just mentioned how much i dislike power imbalances in relationships so YEAH. the thing is, recently, i've discovered that there's more to this trope than dubious (or straight up nonexistent, which, ew) consent and heteronormative views of queer relationships, and that it's got a GUH-REAT potential for angst and interesting dynamics in a relationship. some of my favorite fics i've read recently have come with the tag "non-traditional ABO dynamics" and although i have to be veeeeeery careful and veeeeery picky when venturing into that part of any fandom (also, still not a fan of the smut aspect to it personally, tho i don't mind it either), it's a fascinating new world of possibilities to me. i may be writing something with that very trope for one of my snk ships, too. ijs.

found family

rating: A - love it (spend my time combing AO3 for it)

explanation: you know what, it's not only a trope i enjoy in fanfic, it's something i actively look for in canon material!! from team machine on poi and the swan mills family on once upon a time to the survey scouts in snk and the ada in bsd i just yesssss give me a blorbo with a dark past and/or a dysfunctional family only to Heal them through the chosen family they make for themselves. i CRAVE it!!!

fave trope to read

UNRELIABLE NARRATOR which is incredibly hard to explain as it can mean so many different things, but i'll sum it up to one aspect: i loveeee being surprised when reading fics, especially when it's done in a smart way. give me plot twists, give me unexpected revelations, give me narrators who lie to the reader (but for believable and interesting reasons that make sense, not just bc "huhu they're mean and cunning" as that's boring imo). i've written a few myself and have a bunch of wip/ideas for more, but i don't think mine are that well executed tbh.

fave trope to write

angst with a happy ending/fix it fics! because well!! i've been through canon blorbo deaths one too many times, and i need those to heal my lil heart. it's usually my reason behind starting to post fics for a fandom in fact: i disagree with canon and wanna fix it, so i come up with smth that's canon-compliant up to the point i think is bs, and then either rewrite that or try and heal my blorbos through it. that's right, my main motivation to write fanfiction is... spite. WHO'S SURPRISED? not me.

dividers by saradika-graphics

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Hey Kat (I hope it's ok to call you Kat),

I think I know some triggers for anger. I think a few of them are: feeling misunderstood, feeling unfairly attacked, feeling targeted, feeling unsupported, feeling like my actions are being mischaracterized and I'm being called "bad".

I think it is especially difficult to control my anger when things pile up, too. When triggered, it's very hard for me not to act because in the past, I have unfortunately been relatively passive in traumatic situations, so my body feels like it has to fight back.

It's so difficult too because with the most recent internet drama that I unfortunately instigated, I had a break with reality. I couldn't think clearly at all even though I'm learning DBT skills in an intensive outpatient program and partial hospitalization modality.

I feel like I can't even deal with regular life stuff, too. I think I have some executive dysfunction going on due to unresolved trauma and lack of financial support.

I'm trying coping skills, but it feels like I have too much to cope with, which makes me feel a huge lack of support and less capable than I was before I started to understand that I was abused.

Yeah, and it makes so much sense to struggle with anger after having been hurt and traumatized. It's completely understandable. And it can take a while to figure out how to use the newfound realization that you deserve better and that what happened to you wasn't okay for good. Trauma recovery is a long process and you're not a failure for struggling to find your footing ❤️

[victorianvivisection]

Hey. I know that depression is a bitch and its voice is unbearably loud. I can't imagine what must have caused it to be so strong, although I relate to the feeling of worthlessness. I just wanted to tell you that, even though we don't speak very often, I consider you a friend. You *are* funny and I smile when I see you on my dash or in the tags. I also appreciate that you go out of your way to comment on my fics, the tags you left on my last one made me so very happy because you understood exactly what I was going for :) and yeah I'm also glad that we can talk about badwrong things without one judging the other! Speaking only for myself, it helps a lot with my insecurity.

All of this to say that I do care about you. I'm hugging you from a distance <3 please take care, okay? I hope this wave of self-loathing passes soon.

Hey hello I took a little sleep and uhhh idk I’m at least calm now… I can’t say I’m doing alright. I had a really bad breakdown in regard to my art in early to mid October and I’m just now getting back to where I was. And then recently I had my entire perspective of life and death changed and like it was a good change but that’s still… A lot to deal with.

Unfortunately my lack of motivation or whatever I’m experiencing has been an ongoing issue for a very very long time and I’m not sure what to do about it or what’s causing it… I think a lot of issues piling on top of each other. Depression, anxiety, executive dysfunction, perfectionist mindset… Apparently anemia can be contributing to this too??? Yeahhh btw I have chronic anemia <3 Plus some other issues that I’m not comfortable throwing out onto a public tumblr post

This was nice to wake up to though, I definitely needed the encouragement and just… Appreciation for the fact that I exist lmaooo…

Your work has done a lot for me tbh, with accepting that oh hey I was groomed and it really was that bad! Thanks Hector [Half sarcastic???] and accepting that these are things I enjoy for many different reason and I shouldn’t be ashamed of fiction.

Anyway yayyy hugs and friendship!!! I struggle to talk to people, especially people I don’t talk to regularly I feel like I need a good reason to message them specifically T~T but I’m very much open to talk whenever you’d like :3

Woof this is getting rambly be glad I’m starting to lose what I wanted to say because I probably would have written a novel by now

[skygemspeaks]

the executive dysfunction has been bad recently so the only fic i've actually been able to work on is my social media fic BUT i have this firstprince wip in my folder that deals with alex's rejection sensitive dysphoria where basically they're all out having a fun at a bar or something and alex notices at one point that henry is taking a little too long to get another drink so he gets up to go find him, only to see that henry is getting chatted up by another guy. henry notices him coming over, and he decides to lean into it just a teeny bit because he finds possessive alex really hot.

and alex wasn't too upset at that point, but he noticed the shift in henry's body language, and he realizes that henry is trying to make him jealous on purpose which is what really annoys him. so when alex reaches them, he ignores the other guy and tells henry "hey, i'm not having fun anymore. i need you to stop baiting me."

henry gets defensive, maybe a little embarrassed, and insists that he has no idea what alex is talking about, and he hopes that will defuse alex's annoyance

alex stares at him for a few seconds, and decides not to argue. so instead he just says, "alright, have fun with your new friend," and wanders off. henry is baffled and a little annoyed so he stays talking to the guy a little while longer before going back to find his friends.

when he gets back to the group though, he finds out that alex had already closed out his tab and gone home for the night, at which point henry realizes that he's fucked up big time. so he follows after alex and when he gets home he apologizes and the two of them have a proper conversation about why exactly alex was so upset by the situation ("when you try to make me jealous on purpose, it makes me feel like you're asking me to compete for your affection, and that makes me feel unloved.")

[rassilonsleftbollock]

Not Normla content tw/ Su1cdal ref, s3lf-h4rm ref, mental health talk IF YOU ARE NOT IN A GOOD MENTAL STATE DO NOT FUCKING READ THIS PLEASE!!!

TW-Vent bc I js need to get ts outta my sys and written down somewhere.

So I got some shit wrong with me, like mentally. I have these brief periods of extreme depression, like actually attempting suicide multiple times a week or day. During this time and leading up to it I get insane paranoia and I hallucinate and disassociate a lot. It used to be only a couple of less than a few days a week episodes, maybe once of twice a year when I was stressed, then it grew to become ore frequent when shit started heading far south to the industrial sized shit fan.

It usually includes manic type bipolarity, brain fog, seizures (? can't confirm this one considering they're not always clonic tonic and only have others reports for them+ are nocturnal), Nausea, extreme paranoia based anxiety, self harming, suicidal idealation, despair, like total despair, dissacociation, panic attacks, bad decision making and self-imposed isolation in the form of bedrotting and executive dysfunction for anything other than killing myself.

It used be only in extreme stress, but recently (last year or so) it started progressing to happening at any slightly stressful interval. I usually lean on drugs like nicotine or alcohol during this time, but bc I'm only 15 its hard to get my hands on them (well nic, my parents r alcoholics and do not give a fuck what I drink as long as it doesn't affect them legally).

I'm questioning most at the moment whether I'm heading into another episode (I'm only 3 weeks out of my last one which lasted nearly 2 months and v nearly killed me) or its js withdrawal. I'm also wondering whether to break it off with my long term (over a year) gf. We starting dating just after ts started when I was in a 'normal' period, but bc I've only worsened since and tend to tether my mental state to our relationship, I don't want to pressure her too much by having to deal with my mental issues, nor make her feel responsible for my health. Yet, she is also my only life raft in this because not even my counsellor knows about most of this bc I'm scared of the consequences. I know that if I do I will completely isolate myself and probably not make it if its as bad as the last one. Also it could just be the self-isolating tendencies talking, but I don't want to drag her down to drown with me. Its nearly exam season again, she has mock exam in a week and I have them in March. I think its the looming dread and anxiety which is causing this and also the recent events at school.

I sucked this guy off, with gfs permission, we're open bc I'm a fkn nympho and she's ace leaning, he promised to not tell anyone for using my throat, but two weeks later he's bragging about it to this guy who, with his friends have been non-stop sexually harassing me since I joined that school in April last year (Has been reported, but the ringleaders parents are skl governors so they won't do shit until I get fkn gang raped by them or smth). Anyway, he tells this guy then acts the victim to me on snap later after I've endured a school day which only heightened my rising paranoia, to find out he's been running his mouth. I'm so scared to go to school on Monday bc of how quickly ts will spread. Honestly considering killing myself so I'll never know. Schrodinger's rumour haha. Sorry, not funny. I just want help. Reassurance. I turned to Tumblr to engross myself in my fandoms as the ultimate escape, I've started interacting with my brain world IRL as well lol which is a lovely tell tale sign I'm loosing it by talking to my own fucking dementia <3

I am so fucking tired of this shit I can' even. I don't want to die, I just want a way out without inconveniencing anyone. My death would be the largest inconvenience possible lol.

If anyone has any advice please help me thank youuu!!!

Sorry if this is a bit erratic, brain fog is turning my brain into soup and also I kept crying onto my keyboard lol

[bl00dmuunny]

Sorry for the lack of activity y'all

It's July and I'm still dealing with executive dysfunction right now when it comes to drawing and social media. You're gonna see me be in and out of social media and being slow with art cuz of my mental health and I'm unmotivated to do anything right now. Please don’t take it personal if I’m not talking or posting much 💜

If you've been patient with me til this day, thank you so much for being understanding. I'm hoping this won't last longer because a part of my brain really wants to draw and finish up some art (And start on my Nijima lore animatic already), but mental health and executive dysfunction are bad for me still thanks to life, financial struggles, and pressure from my job.

If you haven't seen what I posted on Twitter or you're not in my Discord server, I posted a long announcement that basically talks about the power outages I've been dealing with recently and how it's gonna affect my will to stream over the summer because I have to limit my usage between being on my gaming PC and using my AC. My bedroom is being affected the most with power outages because of this and roommates downstairs under me and my family's floor are using our electricity illegally. We still haven't resolved things til this day yet and I don't want to keep using my PC and my AC too much because I fear the power outages will not only destroy my PC's specs, but my bf's PS5 as well and we REALLY don't want to start all over again from square one because of this happening. I'm just hoping this doesn't go on longer to November since I planned my debut to be on my birth month (If it does happen or if I'm still not finished with animations/assets for my debut, it'll be postponed to next year)

So yeah, that's all why I'll be in and out of social media and slow with art. There has been so much going on since last month that put me into executive dysfunction mode and I'm trying to bring back my motivation to draw again. I might possibly also quit posting art on Twitter (like what I did with IG for forcing their Meta AI onto their platform) because of Elon making dumb changes soon and the algorithm and engagement on Twitter have been so bad that it's been making me hesitant to post art again. I'm gonna consider moving to post art and streaming updates/content on here and my @nijimathey2kdemon blog instead of listening to other big artists complaining about staying (Which is understandable for growth and commission purposes, but we gotta get off of Twitter at some point because everything there is bad). Twitter generally has been an unhealthy site to be on and it was never meant to be a portfolio site even before Elon took over. So once Elon pushes more dumb Twitter updates to kill engagement and artist growth, I'm officially gonna be moving here, to Bluesky, Cara, and Inkblot (Still debating on Inkblot because their website has been extremely slow...) I also have a Discord server linked in my Carrd if you are interested in joining my Rybii community for art content, streaming updates, or just generally getting along and chilling around my server.

[warsofasoiaf]

It is definitely true that voters by and large don't care about foreign policy, which is a shame because it's one element where the executive branch (and the President in particular) has an outsized role in crafting. Unfortunately, Walz is largely unimpressive here. Walz offers the tired "however long it takes" line on Ukraine, but seems unwilling to discuss pushing forward the expansion of the defense industrial sector to crank out military materiel that would enable a Ukrainian victory. And lest anyone say "he's a governor, that's not really his bailiwick," I'll point out that he has discussed agricultural partnerships with Ukraine. So whether it is or not, he seems to be looking at stage four when we're still in stage two. He's better than JD Vance who seems to all but salivate at the idea of Ukraine being put under Putin's thumb, but I'm sick of "however long it takes" when the real issue is "however much it takes," especially when that "much" has such a positive ROI.

But Walz does have one thing really going for him that I undersold him on - he's a hardcore YIMBY. While federal policy has a small effect on housing (his efforts to push for single-staircase apartment complexes is laudable though), he has the basis to push for energy policy in a big way. Unlike a lot of clean-energy progressives, Walz is pro-nuclear power which is very welcome. If we want a feasible and effective energy transition, we're going to need nuclear in addition to renewables along with investments in batteries. The infrastructure plans we've put in place for EV chargers have been massively expensive and have put few chargers in play. EV's are already unpopular due to the price tag, but without plentiful chargers, they're going to be out of reach for the majority of Americans. Walz appears a whole lot less interested in *talking* about energy as opposed to *building* a new energy infrastructure which is very good.

Economically, he strikes me as a guy that's going to engage in protectionism. Given how aggressively he courted the United Steelworkers endorsement, he's almost certainly going to act to block the Nippon Steel deal which is a victory for the rent-seekers and a loss for the US economy as a whole. Hopefully I'm wrong on that, but I doubt that I am. Permitting reform at the federal level is a different beast than at the state level and the stakeholders who benefit from slow builds and dysfunction are different. So here's hoping he doesn't have much impact on economic policy, or he takes a better turn instead of seeking out the narrow interest of his donors.

On the campaign trail, he looks to be injecting a strong sense of optimism. Pretty much every observer says that the campaign energy has changed within the past month and Walz is definitely a part of it. The actual turnaround is truly remarkable, this 2024 election will probably be studied for the sheer reversals.

But that being said, he made a pretty big gaffe a few days ago when he said: "one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness." I understand what he was probably trying to do - resurrect the old Harry Truman line when he was giving his speech in Syracuse in 1952. However, Walz has two problems on this regard. The first is just timing - socialism was in the public eye recently because Maduro blatantly stole an election in Venezuela and is at this very moment jailing protesters and opposition figures. Even if Walz didn't mean to sound like he was defending Maduro's electoral fraud (and I'm certain he didn't), it comes across as remarkably tone-deaf at best.

The second is, well, frankly, he doesn't have the credibility that someone like Truman would have. By the time of Truman's speech, HST had forcefully articulated the Truman Doctrine for almost five years in fighting for European sovereignty free from the Soviet Union. By contrast, progressives have been whitewashing bad behavior for socialist politicians for a long while now - Bernie Sanders compared Ortega's shuttering of opposition press exposing the Sandinista killings of the Rana and Miskito people to shutting down Nazi publications, Jeremy Corbyn was feted by the Squad even after being expelled by the Labour Party for championing anti-Semitism, Chavez and Maduro were darlings even as they sponsored terrorism in South America and drove their countries into economic ruin. It doesn't even have to be a socialist politician, the DSA is actively pro-Putin and pro-Xi, to a startling lack of condemnation from American progressive politicians.

To me, that suggests a lack of judgement. Without a whole lot of exposure on the national stage, these early steps matter, and to me, it was a mind-numbingly *stupid* action. It looks like he's falling into the trap most progressives fall into, the reflexive tribal need to defend the cause to assert a sense of superiority. That doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence.

-SLAL

So Kamala picked Walz. What are your thoughts on the decision and him?

Anonymous asked: What do you think of Tim Walz?

From what little I know of him, I doubt I'd like him very much. I've made no secret of my disdain for economic populism. It's long on babble, short on substance, and heavy on popular-but-stupid policy, so I doubt he'd offer much of anything from an economic policy perspective. Foreign policy-wise, he's fine on Ukraine but doesn't actually push for a revitalization of defense manufacturing to actually win the war in Ukraine's favor. He's soft on China, bog-standard condemnations of human rights that I expect out of pretty much every American politician these days.

The Harris campaign's strategy seems to be picking him as a November vice - helping bolster progressives who might be turned off by Harris and using Walz's brand as a Midwestern Dad to counter claims that Harris is an "out-of-touch West Coast elite." From a policy perspective, Walz has little to offer, so it appears that the Harris campaign is picking him solely to energize the 2024 voting campaign to deliver victory, rather than an effective administrator to be delegated tasks in a victorious administration after.

Whether that's a good idea or not, I can't say - I'm not the guy that the Harris campaign (or the Trump campaign) is targeting for their electoral strategy. Policy is a snoozer, it doesn't turn out the vote. Most people like to say they care about policy, but in the vast majority of circumstances, that's untrue. People vote based on culture and rationalize the economic and policy justifications post-facto. For someone like me, who has no political culture in the modern American political scene, we're statistically insignificant and thus, not worth pursuing from a mathematical sense. So take that bias into account. I'm not a vibes guy, and elections are vibes-based.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[queer-adhd]

TW disordered eating ; TW neglect ; TW self harm mention

I was wondering if you or your followers have advice for me, since you have so many neurodivergent followers. I've already got a dietician helping me out with the food part, but I'm struggling with the autistic/ADHD part.

At the age of 31 I found out I have a ton of food allergies and intolerances. Apparently I've also developed a histamine intolerance along the way.

This suddenly put a lot of things in perspective: I've always struggled with food, and I realised this is because my parents/childhood environment didn't take these issues seriously and just continually told me to stop making a fuss and finish my plate.

I think I ended up developing ARFID because of this. Seemingly everything I ate made me sick so I just stopped eating unless I was on the verge of fainting, or unless my ADHD made me seek out dopamine (back when I was still unmedicated). I think the fainting thing might be hypoglycemia? I was always told that's a diabetes-only thing but the symptoms match up with how I felt the majority of my life and I recently read it can also be caused by eating disorders.

Thanks to my dietician, I now know what I can digest and what I can't and it's had a major positive effect on my health so far. We've been working on these issues for a year or so now. She's been amazing for the food part, but doesn't know anything about neurodiversity.

I keep getting stuck on the brain part of recovery. I've regained my ability to distinguish nausea from hunger, but I still constantly forget to eat. I've trained myself my entire life to ignore hunger. My sense of time is really bad, so a day will pass by and I'll only realise I forgot to eat all day around dinner time. My ADHD meds probably diminish my sense of hunger too. I enjoy cooking but executive dysfunction makes it hard even though I know I need fresh foods for the histamine thing. My ADHD makes me crave things I can't have whenever my menstrual cycle makes my meds less effective: I make sure I don't have any around, but the dopamine seeking thing makes it hard to eat something else at those times. Autistic sensory issues give me trouble with some safe foods which makes having a balanced diet difficult. I've also just been struggling to find safe foods in general because the various allergies are hard to combine and it takes a lot of research/focus to find new things I can safely add to my diet.

It's also taken me a long time to accept this is a type of eating disorder. Most doctors I talked to about these issues basically reacted the same way my parents did before I found my current dietician. So while I objectively know it's not my fault, I still constantly have to remind myself that I'm not just being difficult and that I really do need all of this. I try to do this with CBT techniques, but I also noticed a problematic trend: I don't seek out allergic reactions, but whenever I do react it feels like a validation of my struggles being real now that I know how to identify an allergic reaction. While I think I'm dealing OK with this at the moment, I'm kinda worried this has the potential to turn into a type of self-harm if my mental health were to take a bad turn in the future. I've already told my therapist, but she's not entirely sure how to deal with this either. (She's looking into it though.)

I can't be the only person struggling with issues like these? Given how ADHD/autism and allergies/histamine issues are comorbid. Does anyone recognise this situation? Any tips on how to deal with it? Or Tumblr/Discord/Reddit groups that talk about this? Or should I just give it more time?

END TW

-

Thank you for running this blog, by the way. Seeing other people's asks here and at Rouke's place has helped me figure out a few other minor health issues too. Your blogs seem to have had a positive impact for a lot of people. Really makes me appreciate the power of community.

So guess who had a response to this in his drafts and then got punched in the face by life repeatedly. Sorry! Here's what I had in drafts:

Ahhh I'm really glad that we've been able to help, even if it's just by linking people to other people who might know how to help better than us.

So I can't offer help on everything but I can confirm that ADHD also makes me forget to eat, and having a structured life kinda helps. I bring lunch to work with me and lunch break is a set time every day where everyone in my office stops to eat, so I don't forget.

I also think that possibly one of these might be helpful:

It's a vibrating wristwatch; it's got ten different alarms, so they're most often used for medication reminders but they're also honestly great for reminding you to eat. They're physical so they don't get silenced when I put my phone on do not disturb, and they haven't set off my sensory issues.

The lights are usually off unless you click the button to check, so the battery life is good and it's rechargeable via micro-usb cable instead of battery replacements.

Also, generally speaking I'd say that a safe food is better than no food or not enough food. Even if you're not managing to eat super healthy or whatever, jump on the opportunities you get where your brain or body says yes, particularly if they're rare.

Regarding the self harm aspect, I've definitely struggled with something similar. It's hard. Feeling validated like that is something very appealing, even if it's objectively miserable. I'd say that as long as you're not seeking them out, it's not too much of an issue. Maybe try and keep track of how often you find this happening; if there's an uptick, then it's time to break out the CBT and also potentially address any stressors in your life that might be contributing.

Also yes ADHD in general can be a contributor to disordered eating; our dopamine pathways are fucked. Food can be a major issue because of that.

As per, please anyone who knows more or has any insight chime in?

[viobliterator]

so i suppose this is the start of a new blogging series. check tags for triggers/squicks or whatever they're called

to keep things brief, ever since my mom finished her chemo/radiation years ago, she's been in a cognitive decline. i initially thought it was just chemo brain plus her being older, but my family and i noticed change in her. it feels like she's turning into me, and i'm turning into her, if that makes sense. i'm wondering who the mom is and who the daughter is.

she and my dad have been to the memory clinic a few times. i've chatted with my dad about what i notice in my mom, since i spend more time with her during the week. my dad and i recently had a conversation about the memory clinic's assessment, and it's apparent that she's definitely under the dementia umbrella but we still have yet to find out exactly what kind, since it's all kinds of different diseases with different progressions and prognoses

now to get to the emotion-side of this, because that's the purpose of this blog series. i try to be patient with my mom, i really do. but i'm so dang frustrated about the wholel thing. i know the boss ass bitch that is my mom is still in there but there's her shitty brain in the way and i just want to shake it out of her and tell her to snap out of it.

for example, she's always misplacing things and i end up having to help her find them. if i dare suggest her putting things in the same place or giving her advice that works for me, since i'm ADHD and autistic and understand the whole executive dysfunction thing, then i get hit with a response that sounds like it came straight out of a teenager's mouth. i dare to suggest she get a dang hobby, something mentally stimulating, same thing. she's frustrated with herself, i get it. she's also frustrated that she's losing independence. i sympathize.

but where's the part of her that's disciplined?

where is my mom?

i'm also mad that i have to deal with this before my 30th birthday. most people who deal with this kind of thing don't have to even think about it till their 40s or even 50s. but here i am. my sister is only in her early 40s. i still have no idea what i'm doing 90% of the time but here i am having to think about what we're going to do with my mom. i bet things will only progress from here too, and i don't like thinking about it. it feels fake but i also thought i'd had way more time than this.

part of me wishes she hadn't had me as late as she did, so i'd at least have a bit more wisdom under my belt by the time this happened.

i try to stay patient with her and not express my frustrations directly to her. i don't want her to feel like she's a burden, even though she kinda is. even thinking things like that makes me feel like a bad person, and a bad daughter. i want to tell her to figure things out. i want to tell her to pay attention. i want to tell her to snap out of this funk. i want to leave the house just to get away from the bullshit. i want to look up assisted living just so i don't have to deal with this.

idk if that makes me a bad daughter. my dad tells me he doesn't want me to feel obligated to take care of her as this goes on, but i'm her daughter. my sister took care of her when she had cancer, so it's only fair that i take care of her during this period??

and what kind of daughter doesn't take care of her aging mother

but yeah i hate this crap. i just want my mom back. even the annoying parts.

[donnerpartyofone]

Does anybody remember several years ago, while the MCU supremacy was still on the rise, when people briefly complained that Marvel movies were either imitating or actively ripping off fan fiction? Like obviously there were development executives who figured out that fandom was happening, and that fan-created content offered an easy reference guide for what kind of thing would best separate fools from their money, and some fans were reasonably annoyed by being exploited and condescended to like that? I guess whatever outrage popped up then was defused by the pleasure the target demo felt when they saw approximations of their own work brought to big-budget life by no less than the Disney corporation (and to a lesser degree the US military-industrial complex for which it stans). Too bad though, because now the fans who fed the success of the MCU and neo-Star Wars stuff have to deal with the irony of Disney attacking them for copyright infringement--not that that stops any of those people from continuously defending their abuser whenever anyone suggests that it's just a greedy corporation that chews up its underpaid employees to churn out formulaic garbage whose main purposes are securing subscription fees, and templating the production of overpriced merchandise.

But uh anyway, the reason I'm thinking about this now is because of corporate ads I see that utilize actual fan art. It's so crazy what they choose! Recently there was an ad for some Marvel thing that I first assumed was just some tween's blazed post for their little webcomic or whatever; the graphic was really crude and nothing about it stood out, so I was stunned when I finally looked at it long enough to notice that it was a piece of fan art that had been commissioned or acquired to promote some new Marvel show. Now I'm seeing that Teen Wolf ad every four or five posts, and I had that same experience where I went from thinking it was just some random crappy fan art, to realizing that it was crappy fan art offered to me by MTV to get me to watch a professionally-produced television series based on a successful existing property movie based on a TV series based on a popular film (JFC!). The art tells you absolutely nothing; it's just two generic white guys standing stiffly in front of a jeep. There's no style or flair, and it's like...well I remember being at the age when I drew like that, like I was competent enough to draw proportional bodies, but I had a hard time with things like fists, upturned faces, differentiating one character's features from another, and just getting a figure to look like it was standing naturally. So there's this kind of rigorous boringness to the image, and if it weren't for the corporate logos, I'd never have guessed that it wasn't JUST a cruddy no-reason drawing of two anonymous guys. The kind of thing somebody drew just to practice drawing clothes, or cars, or whatever. Not much going on. (Shouldn't there at least be a werewolf or something??)

What I mean to say is that it's interesting what a dysfunctional relationship large scale entertainment companies have with the fans they rely on. Like, the corporations know enough to take their cues from fan content, so we get movies and shows that are patterned on shit from AO3 and we get ads featuring actual low level fan art...but that seems to suggest that the companies think that fans are more interested in fan content than they are in the source material. Is this actually true? Maybe! I'm an outside observer, so I really have no idea if the average fandom member actually prefers awkward drawings and jerkoff prose written by 12 year olds (or people who write like them), to whatever professional comics/movies/shows that stuff is based on. They might genuinely prefer the former by now, or they might just not see any difference anymore. But the choice of fan art for these Tumblr ads is really shocking to me. It's like the marketing people decided it was a good idea to pander to fandoms by using their own content against them, but then they were too afraid to use anything with real personality, and they definitely weren't going to use anything really homemade-looking. So, they just went with something that wasn't too good, and wasn't too bad, either. The graphics chosen don't look remotely as good as some of the stuff that turns up regularly on Tumblr Radar, and are also not as interesting as the truly raw, perverted children's fan art that circulates here all the time. Personally, I think they should go with the latter, and start buying up seriously primitive kid drawings and disgusting fetish art and all that real deal fandom shit that makes fandom so repulsive to the rest of us. If corporations wanna pull that "we're just like you" trick by feeding fan content back to the fans, they should really lean in. Get all that popular rapey, incest-y, queer baiting, mpreg weirdness into the ads and just watch the money roll in.

All that said, I do feel concerned about corporations making a product out of fandom to be sold back to the fandom itself--and assuming that we're ALL potential fans and stans--because I think it identifies a mistake being made re: what professional production should look like. And I don't mean to suggest that "outsiders" don't make great art or write interesting stories ("outsider art" is a suspicious label anyway but you know what I mean); any time something truly inspired and original emerges, it doesn't matter where it comes from. But as a consumer, when I'm asked to pay full price for something, I expect it to be made with a greater level of talent and sophistication than what it takes for a young amateur to get a lot of notes on Tumblr (or wherever) from other young people exactly like themselves. Like I remember being a kid and drawing loving portraits of Fox Mulder, Over and Over and Over Again...but if I spent my precious allowance on the latest X-Files comic and found that the inside looked just like my sketchbooks, I would have felt pretty disappointed. If those comics were advertised using that type of art, I would have felt sad and confused about why a comic based on my favorite popular TV show was no better than what I make for myself in my school notebooks. And it would have been fair for me to feel personally ripped off, too, considering the fact that I made that kind of art for free, and now I was paying some entertainment company to sell it back to me.

As an adult horror fan, I'm part of a community (whether I like it or not!) that produces tons of fan content, and also lots of deeply homemade cinema. Some of it is made with real ingenuity, but like, that makes up a predictably tiny minority of what's out there. Once in a while I see a new-to-me title for rent on a major streaming platform, and after I've paid a normal-movie amount of money to satisfy my optimistic curiosity about it, and I find out that it's just, you know, a no-budget ripoff of EVIL DEAD shot on an iPhone in somebody's mom's basement...then I feel pissed off. And I have a right to feel pissed off! Context is important, and part of the context of a movie is where it is offered, and how much you pay to see it. Like, the world has a seemingly endless supply of shot-on-video movies about vampires starring suburban douchebags in wraparound shades and vinyl clothes from Hot Topic, drooling and slurring around mouthfuls of plastic fangs...and don't get me wrong, those guys have a right to make those things, but if I accidentally paid $20 to see one of them in a theater that was otherwise showing what I will shamelessly call Real Movies, I'd be mad. And more to the point, if I had shed the blood sweat & tears required to make a Real Movie myself, which is an almost miraculous feat even for something that comes out bad, and I saw my title on a marquis next to one of those mall goth camcorder movies, I'd probably feel like I failed somehow.

I'm thinking of something I saw recently about a new author who debuted on the NYT best-seller list, who had been plucked from fan fiction obscurity by the business minds at a mainstream publisher. Obviously the execs realized what kind of traffic fan fiction did online and figured they could just skin and repackage that shit as an original romance novel--and they were right. There was nothing apparently special about the book except that the author enjoyed some preexisting fandom community recognition, and the book fit with preexisting fic formulae. The article that described this event included a writer's statement that was itself incredibly primitive, basically saying (inarticulately) that they felt like they had no idea what they were doing but their editor was really helpful in hammering their raw, amateurish writing into something recognizable as a book you'd see in a real, normal bookstore. And like, you can really imagine what happened there, when you read that. And I don't think that should be happening.

I'm sure that for some people, writing and drawing fan content is a great gateway to perfecting a craft, along with formal education, studying lots of different kinds of art and reading lots of different kinds of writing besides the one thing that's your favorite, suffering regular rejection letters and painful criticism, seeking mentorship with experienced pros, gaining your own professional experience, and just plain old making sacrifices and putting in the hours. And that's fine. But, I just don't think publishing houses and production studios with even a modicum of reach and power should put a cap on quality at "rando who gets a lot of traction on deviant art dot com". Call me elitist all you want, I don't think we should put grownup price tags on shit kids make for free to amuse each other. I don't think we should suggest to creators and producers of all kinds that nobody has to try any harder than that. And we shouldn't suggest, by proxy, that audiences don't deserve any better than that, either.

[scretladyspider]

Do you have any tips on how to stop dissociating? It's gotten to the point that for every two days, I lose roughly twelve hours of time. It's kind of driving me insane? I'm always in a state of dissociation nowadays and no matter what I do, it constantly bites me in the butt. Also how are you? I hope you're doing well!

Stopping it altogether isn’t something I’m particularly good at. But I’ll tell you what’s helping me right now. I am far from perfect at these things. They take continued practice and effort, and they aren’t easy. But they help a little. And that adds up, I think. 

Be gentle with yourself. 

I think that’s most important, and probably most difficult. We’re going through something unprecedented in our lives. Reading about things like a plague and living through it are totally different things. 

With everything on standstill, our brains don’t really know what to do. Dissociating isn’t an uncommon reaction to extreme stress or trauma; you are not alone in experiencing it, or in it getting worse.

So the real question then is how do you be gentle with yourself in a way that helps you with dissociation? 

Figure out your limits and stick within them. 

This is different for everyone. For me, it meant muting everything related to COVID that I can on Twitter and only watching the news at the end of the day. Why? Because if I watch it at the beginning of the day, my brain just zaps out and I’m stuck in a dissociated, executive dysfunction depression fog that just lasts for hours. It can go on for the whole day.

Once I started muting things that I do care about but just can’t read an excessive amount about without shutting down. This is a limit within my self-care I have to stick within. It’s one of many, and they are personal to me - just as yours would be personal to you. 

It means you need to figure out what sets things off - if anything in particular does. You might be surprised by what you find. If you notice something is bothering you, write it down. Take note. Try and distance yourself from it, if you can, at least a little. 

Find ways to connect with people.

A virtual connection is still a connection. It isn’t quite the same, but it is something. 

Virtual movie nights are good. You can call someone, or get a chat going, where you hit play at the same time on Netflix or Hulu. There’s a chrome extension called Netflix Party where you can screen share and watch a movie with a party. There’s a YouTuber who does a video series called “Bad Movies and a Beat” who posts a link to her Netflix parties when she watches bad movies. She puts on makeup while reacting to or doing commentary on a bad movie. It’s pretty funny - here’s a link to her playlist. 

The best ways to connect are going to be more than typing or sending videos. Those are good, but, it’s good also to find people to call and video chat live with. Something where you’re interacting with that person in real-time. Zoom and Skype can be good platforms for this (though if you’re on Zoom I’d recommend using a VPN, and their privacy policies are a bit sketch). 

Do you have a pet? If not, can you adopt? I have two cats and they greatly help me stay connected. I don’t necessarily speak to a person every day, but I can talk to my cats, and that does help. A person’s bond with their pet can be very special, and shelters are still looking to give pets new homes, even in these times. 

Find good distractions. 

What is something you enjoy laughing at? What is a TV show or YouTube channel you find funny? Laughter, even if you aren’t laughing out loud, can help. Dissociation feeds on the attention we give it. While it can be vital to talk about it, it is also essential to make sure it doesn’t take over your entire day, if you can help it. It can still be going on without it taking over every thought. This takes practice. I was getting better at it before everything happened, but, well... I feel like I’m starting over. 

This brings me to my next thing - resources for dissociation help. 

Swarmy G, or A Coach Called Life - A YouTuber and DPRD expert who has recovered himself. What I like about Swarmy’s videos is he doesn’t talk down to you for experiencing it, or say that it’s just anxiety - he understands that dissociation and anxiety are linked, but are not the same thing. He also sends out emails about different things that dissociation can cause struggles with and advice on how to handle it. I’ve found his stuff very helpful. 

DP Diaries  - A YouTuber in the U.K. who has DPRD himself and vlogs about what works for him, what doesn’t, and his experiences. It helps me feel less alone. His most recent vlog is about dealing with DPRD during the pandemic.

Here is a vlog about what helped on YouTuber when she was struggling with severe depersonalization. 

There are a lot more on YouTube out there, but those are some starters. 

If you can, it may be good to look into online or remote counseling. There are some therapists doing virtual counseling right now and there are also services like BetterHelp (though I do not have personal experience with them, I hear they aren’t bad). 

I hope this helps, at least a little. I don’t know when things will be okay again. We’re going to have to take some deep breaths and practice patience and safe social distancing. One thing I do know is you aren’t at all alone in experiencing this. I hope you’re okay, and that this helps at least a little.