crossstitchbossbitch-blog

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Yesterday I tried to give my handsome koi betta (Ghostface Killa) a girlfriend... but it turns out he is just a misogynist and does not appreciate company in his territory :/ I had her in the bag floating in the tank with the lights off for 30 mins to acclimate to temp etc. then released her.

I removed her from the tank within ~10-15 mins and took her back to the shop. She was probably in my house for an hour tops.

Despite him building bubble nests on his lonesome, he did nothing but aggro her, chasing her to each corner of the tank, seemingly attacking her even when she went up for air, and essentially being a dick. I knew he was gonna be a bit of a bastard but I somehow didn't think he would be that bad. I was wrong.

It sucks to eat humble pie, but I would prefer that this female betta didn't get injured because of my ignorance (or naïveté).

I have kept only male bettas over the years and I thought it might be a nice new avenue to open up, with his behaviour showing signs of paternal instinct. I just thought since he had been making nests that he was ready, but clearly fantasy is preferable to reality! I didn't want to see that new fish get brutalised so I just netted her and went straight back to the shop. In the pics I had turned the lights on to see where she was being chased before catching her.

... after thinking about it, maybe it could be that the fish I brought home was a particularly drab, immature male, as the shop weren't 100% sure.

Either way, they said it was fine to return them for the welfare of the animal.

It sucks to know things don't always go to plan, but that's why responsible establishments will accept returns and support the hobbyists.

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The council is in session.

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Betta unimaculata complex, with all its subtypes!

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This is not good news. It has been soul crushing to admit that we aren't ready, not now, and my cocktail of psych meds increases the risks of bad things happening to me and / or the baby. Reducing my antidepressant SNRIs has been really difficult so far, and I'm scared to go lower.

I have an appointment at the clinic next week to get a medical abortion.

Thankfully I live in the UK where someone at 4-5 weeks can seek this treatment on the NHS with very few obstacles in their way. I would say the process wasn't as straightforward as I had hoped, because there are also charities that offer referrals, so making sure you're getting to the right NHS provider has been a bit confusing.

Emotionally and mentally it has been shit, trying to make this decision and organising stuff. It's an absolute nightmare: so many feelings of guilt, shame, confusion, sadness, self-doubt, and fear.

Add to that the physical issues that come with early pregnancy; I'm so fucking tired all the time, which has compounded a very reasonably depressive episode. Sleeping for 10-12 hours, falling asleep on the sofa at 8pm, or staying in bed until 11am... or both.

I have developed a keen sense of smell and find a lot of scents to be nauseating. I have vomited up lemon and ginger tea whilst crying hysterically. Weirdly, I get my worst nausea in the evening, but feel gross most of the day with the smell of hot food turning my stomach at any time. I always have a weird taste in my mouth, too, no matter how much I'm brushing my teeth and using mouthwash.

The story starts on Saturday - my period was late by a few days, it ranges from a 28 day cycle to 35 days, maybe every 6 months. I decided to use a test that was expired by 2 years, and it showed up positive. Cue googling the likelihood of false positives, the accuracy of expired tests, and general panic.

I told my boyfriend of 8 years straight away; we live together in the house we bought, so hiding it would be weird and stupid. I value honesty above all else in our relationship and try to practice my values with authenticity.

Plus, it wouldn't be anyone else's actions that led to me becoming pregnant!

We immediately freaked out, and after agreeing that a false positive was unlikely, resolved to obtain a better, in-date test the following day.

Over the next few days we talked a lot, cried a lot, and came to the conclusion that we weren't ready for this. A really big factor we kept coming back to was our own mental health and wellbeing, and how poorly we had been looking after ourselves, barely being able to come out of survival mode.

Since we moved in together into rented accommodation in 2018, we always had something to battle against. Our neurodivergent brains struggled to cope with things that were unfair, sudden changes or backslides.

For instance: The dodgy landlord who let rain pour through the ceiling when we paid SO MUCH in rent; terrible jobs and employers; the stress of moving house; the trauma of a house fire; the pandemic changing the whole world; the PTSD and temporary accommodation after the house fire; more house moves causing more stress; the deaths of loved ones; health issues of different loved ones; coping with the feelings of jealousy and inadequacy as our peers started families; saving up to buy a house; going through the mind numbing process of viewing houses for sale; dealing with estate agents; actually buying a house; renovating the house; hitting roadblocks whilst renovating the house; grieving; never knowing if we are doing the right thing; changes in medication; medication supply problems; increased pressure at work.... We slog along in this battle of endurance.

Being beseiged in a constant battle does not signal "safe environment to raise a family", and I know we are very privileged to both be employed, to have most of our health and to have an existing support network... but now is not the right time for us to start a family.

I envision a tiny newborn, and after finding out about the various complications that could be caused by my meds, my BMI being high, or anything else, even if it only increases the chances by 2% - I couldn't live with myself knowing it was my fault that tiny baby had a heart or lung defect, or stunted growth, or suffered trauma due to my high blood pressure or from my being overweight.

A smoker would stop smoking, a drinker would stop drinking with immediate cessation. I can't immediately stop my antidepressants, nor my adhd meds, and continue working to earn money to save up for future plans. I can't immediately and sustainably lose weight and get fit. I need to put my health first and give any hypothetical child the best chances possible.

Maybe this is a goal to work towards over the next year or two. More importantly it's a goal that I choose, with my partner supporting me, not a decision made out of pressure or obligation. If we're gonna do it, let's do it right.

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When the adhd and morning wanderlust brain takes you on a motivational journey to passive-aggressively spur ur boyfriend of over 7 years into doing more housework outside of just cooking tea...

I am a shitty terribly organised person who can't tidy for love nor money. The "out of sight, out of mind" phenomenon deeply impacts how I operate, and I will put things in a place that feels logical to me at the time... until I am back in that same headspace, I won't think about where I put the thing. Add to this how frequently I'm rushing because I'm late, or how often the fascination with an item or activity simply ends, and you get serious chaos.

I have little areas in the house that look like Howl's room 😆

So being a bitch and doing a list or task chart is severely hypocritical but that's what the brain decided to do this morning. Ah fuck.

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This is Ghostface, he is my new male "koi-type" betta fish! Within a couple of weeks he built a bubble nest and got very defensive of it 🥰

I named him Ghostface because he has a white mask, like Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard's antagonist of the Scream movies... Meanwhile I don't think he shares many similarities with Wu-Tang's Ghostface Killah, but you never know, he could still have a sick flow.

I've got this guy's tank downstairs so he gets to see a bit more of daily life in the house. Usually bettas do quite well with a bit of interaction, and since they can be territorial and aggressive to tankmates, I've housed him alone.

I do also have a pea puffer in a tank next to him, but they have a divider so they're not constantly giving one another aggro! (It is offensively difficult to get a good pic of a pea puffer because they're so SMALL)

Both of these lil fellas get live blackworms as about 50% of their diet. It's so fab to see them hunting and displaying natural predation behaviour.

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Hatsune mako

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Deep sea benthic Miku

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TW: death, cancer

So, yesterday a lady that should not have died in her 40s, died in the local hospice. Her cancer surgery hadn't worked, and she had a daughter who can't be older than 13 or 14. It's tragic, it's baffling, it's an absolutely horrible thing to go through and my heart aches for her family and friends.

Can't quite fathom why the world works this way. I know there's 7 billion modern humans on this planet and most of us wouldn't survive "in the wild" or during early hunter-gatherer societies.... but this lady was a paragon of fitness and strength. The sort of person you could see surviving a zombie apocalypse. She was a fellow girlguiding leader and she lead a Rainbows unit (for 4-7 year olds). Her leader name was BFG, the big friendly giant, because she was over six foot tall.

I've been on brownie camps with her where she was fun and silly and creative, all of us singing campfire songs together and being able to nip away and have a break from the kids because we can all support one another.

I had an accidental 'left a candle unattended' house fire and she attended the call as a firefighter. During the aftermath whilst my partner was getting checked for smoke inhalation she came and spoke to me and I remember being embarrassed that I knew her, but she was so cool and non-judgemental and calmed me down from full on panic tears and hyperventilating.

I guess this is just one way of processing things for me, it's not fucking fair that great, kind, amazing people die every day. Now we just have to carry on with life as normal despite awful shitty things happening all the time. I know she probably wouldn't be happy with people being sad, but I do think we have to take a minute to process such a huge thing.

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Goofus update! Looking far healthier hunting for live blackworms this evening. Finished the ich meds treatment and kept up with water changes, and the water temp is at around 27°C now.

Their fins are fuller and look to be healing, and their mouth barbels look way better too.

Super happy to have stopped this lil guy from struggling so much!

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So I talk, like, a lot. I was speaking in full sentences before 12 months old and, as my family said, I "never shut up since".

Through my teen years I learned to emulate the voices of my favourite bands so I could sing along (The Living End, Green Day, Stray Cats, Nine Inch Nails, Reel Big Fish, The Clash, Rancid, My Chemical Romance, Mustard Plug, [Spunge], Fall Out Boy, Papa Roach, New Found Glory, Nekromantix, The Meteors, etc.), and they were all male-fronted. There were only a couple of bands or a couple of songs with female singers that I liked (props to Dance Hall Crashers, Deadline, No Doubt, The Distillers and Horrorpops).

Such was the state of popular alternative music in the 2000s.

I had a father with short man syndrome, and the way folks got respect in our family was through being the loudest and most aggressive.

I attended an all-girls grammar school and all I wanted to do was differentiate myself from the shrill catty posh girls who were quite mean to my friends and I on a daily basis. As we got a bit older and our goth-punk-emo obsessions could be let out in outfits to wear once we started going out drinking and clubbing, me and my friends were not far off this pic:

Men and boys seemed to have a lot more gravitas and commanded more respect from the general population. I joined the air cadets and discovered I had to be more monotone, macho and masculine than the boys in my squadron in order to be heard.

All this meant that I modulated my voice pitch quite low.

Now I'm going through a journey of unmasking my neurodivergent self and I am trying to be more sociable and get over myself. Cultural norms have moved on and I've matured to the point to realise that no one really gives a shit what you wear or what you look like.

Some of this means making an effort with folks at work and talking to them, but my voice is loud and low, I have trouble filtering myself so swear a bit and generally my reactions like bursting out laughing or making noises of acknowledgement are loud too.

On Friday me and my team got told to be quiet because some random woman in our open plan office wanted to concentrate. She isn't senior to us and prefaced her comments with "Can I be a bitch" which just makes it worse, because she knew she was being an asshole.

It made me super pissed and I really did have to stop myself from telling her to fuck off. I am BAD at modulating my voice pitch and volume due to my neurodiverse traits and now I'm spiralling looking at how to voice train myself to be soft and quiet and sweet and feminine so I don't get shushed again.

She was not given permission to be a bitch.

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Just playing with my nice marker pens. I will do this sort of thing over the course of a wfh day.

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First day it's hit 18°C here in the North West of England. Treating myself like a belligerent houseplant and enforcing sunlight absorption time, because my moods and motivation have been absolutely shite of late. With house renovation delays and hormonal imbalances, I've felt awful. We own a proper fixer-upper and all we can do is do some reno work, save and be miserable, pay for more work, save again, ad infinitum. So, the little things, like it being sunny and me being able to hang out in the privacy of my own back garden, are very important right now.

The dog is solar powered and won't lie on the stone flags, so he gets an old rug to sunbathe on. I get my cutoff jean shorts and my hairy pale legs out. Everyone wins!

I should probably put some sunscreen on.

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TW: sick fish (at first!)

So, I was helping a family member who has bad eyesight this past week. I was going in to feed their tank whilst they were on holiday, and I noticed this little clown loach struggling to swim and even stay in one place without being blasted about by the current. There's also a red tail shark in that tank, so it wouldn't last long in that state. I don't blame the family member, they genuinely might not have seen it, and it probably isn't something to discuss until they're back from their holiday.

The loach is definitely emaciated, not sure if they have had some injuries or slime coat disruption. Additionally I think they have mouth or barbel rot and were probably due for a nasty, slow passing as they didn't seem able to get much food or exhibit normal behaviour.

I fishnapped it on Saturday, popped it in a free tank at my house and medicated it with methyl blue / anti-ich/fungus treatment. Not holding out too much hope but we might get there...

It's now Tuesday night. This lil guy is far more active and I can see some of the silly clown loach character coming out! I have started calling it Goofus, and here they are with a belly from chowing down on some baby brine shrimp, looking a little coloured up (imo).

Next dose of meds will come after a water change tomorrow. Updates to follow (hopefully)!

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Using the weekend to recover from the work week but then needing to do chores or life admin and interact with people....

Then getting more and more depleted until you fully burn out

There’s no such thing as work-life balance for neurodivergent & chronically ill people.

This is because everything in my life requires work:

maintaining friendships

keeping up with my hygiene

managing bills

making money

remembering my basic needs

sleeping regularly

outputting creatively

All requires some aspect of work for me.

And when everything in your life requires work, your balance goes out the window.

If you're neurodivergent and overwhelmed — I see you.

If you're chronically ill and overwhelmed — I see you.

You're not dysfunctional.

You're not incapable.

You're doing your best.

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Same for needing to pee too

graph of what being hungry is like with adhd