darlingarmadillo

[darlingarmadillo]

Sabrina: tabby or torbie?

@whatcoloristhatcat

[darlingarmadillo]

One thing about the Euros is that the English still haven’t quite adjusted to the Queen dying so during the national anthem they keep singing “God Save The Quing” like there’s a non-binary monarch on the throne.

[darlingarmadillo]

some of my best friends i met at the devil’s sacrament

[darlingarmadillo]

[darlingarmadillo]

Honestly I can tell you finding out art was made by AI really does immediately, legitimately sour it for me, like people will trot this out as a Gotcha for anti-AI people but it's just making it clear they don't consider art to be the conversation that it is lol. It's similar to the way Harry Potter immediately soured for me because engaging with it while knowing the kind of heart Rowling is writing from changes the way the work feels; there isn't any moralizing or whatever that I have to do, it's easy to drop it because it's rotted in my hands.

"Oh but you LIKED this song before, nothing changed!" The conversational partner did. A very large portion of what is interesting to me about art is thinking of why the creator chose that instrumentation, or what made them want to make the thing in the first place. Finding out I've been talking to a wall completely removes an entire third of the force that art is to me, and I can't argue that anything about art or its consumption is Objectively Correct but I can argue it's fucking boring lmao

[darlingarmadillo]

One thing I have loved seeing in the whole TikTok situation is young American and Chinese folks on Red Note joking and memeing together, asking each other questions, and finding commonalities, thanks to the assistance of the internet, phones that come standard with quality video capabilities, and translation software. THIS was the kind of future we hoped technology would facilitate back when it was new. A larger society than one bounded by geography, where we could all be connected to one another, as people.

And it is highlighting a message I delivered with my whole heart when I was in Peace Child choir in high school: People are not their governments. People are not country-sized monoliths. We are all messily, imperfectly human and we all have the same needs, loves, and fears. We have more in common than we have differences.

I feel like this is a message that is SO IMPORTANT in these days of tribalism, in painting groups of people with the same black and white villainizing brush. (Mind you, I say "these days" - tribalism and prejudice has always been a part of societies, but we don't even pay lip service to the idea of compassion and shared humanity now.) It breaks my heart that a tool that could connect everyone gets perverted to divide them. It has gotten so bad that even a sermon asking for this connection, this compassion, is seen as divisive, because of the power that would be threatened if we ever jettisoned the stereotypes that make "We are good and they are bad" so easy to say.

We are not our governments and we do not have to be. We are not our political parties and we do not have to be. We are humans. We evolved to support one another, to share the load of existence among ourselves so that we could all individually thrive. Any society that discourages this approach weakens itself to the point of its own downfall and the downfall of other societies. We have a responsibility to each other in the world, regardless of what our governments say.

[darlingarmadillo]

And while I'm at it, another thought on the whole ADHD thing:

You would be a complete and utter garbage pail of a human if you expected someone missing, say, a leg, to do things exactly the same way two-legged people could.

Sure, they can get a prosthetic. But those are never as effective, reactive, or flexible as a flesh leg. They're heavy, dead weight, and require a different way of moving. After a while your stump will get sore and you will need to take it off. Some days you may not be able to wear it. No matter what kind of aid you use, it's gonna wear on you, and it will take you longer to do things. You're gonna have to plan ahead for how tired you might become, for how long you can reasonably expect to run or walk, for what you're going to do if there are no accessible doors. You have to put way more thought, expense, and effort into just existing because of the way society forgets about people with disabilities, and you still need to live in society.

And no matter how much all of the above sucks, your leg ain't growing back, and you need to accept that.

If you have dopamine receptor problems, that keep your brain from cooperating with you, that throw roadblocks up to you doing even simple things that most people seem to establish routines for doing with little or no effort, you can take meds to help, but it will not be the same as having everything functioning as society would have it function, and eventually, they're going to wear off. You have to plan ahead for the timing of taking them, to somehow get enough to have your meds on hand if you are travelling, to have options or safeguards for if you lose your keys, your charger, if you forget an appointment. You have to put way more thought, expense, and effort into existing than a neurotypical person, because society says you're broken the way that you naturally function, and you still need to live in society.

And no matter how much that sucks, you can't permanently change the way your brain functions, and you need to accept that.

The problem is, you can't point at a visibly missing leg when people judge you and look down on you for the compensations you need. There's no way to prove this is the way you are, even when you know this with your whole being. From the outside, you're "taking up an accessible parking space when someone else REALLY needs it."

Doesn't it make sense that it would seem easier and less painful to believe you COULD fix yourself if you just tried a little harder? That you could grow back that leg if you just applied yourself?

So you strap on the metaphorical prosthetic and use it past the point of pain, till you're raw and bleeding, in order to be taken seriously. You rely on last-minute, down-to-the-wire deadlines, pushing yourself to exhaustion, and beat yourself up mercilessly for any little mistake, because you believe others will be even harsher than you if they see you fail, if they knew who you REALLY were. It's unsustainable, and it will lead to self-hatred, depression, and anxiety, where every tiny mistake is a crisis and every triumph is a squeaked-by fluke, a miracle that you managed to pull off. The belief that you are the laziest person who ever lived, so surely you don't deserve anything good, will lead to going along with any abuser that shows an interest in you, because it's probably the best you're going to get.

To stop hurting yourself, you need to accept you are who you are, and start caring for yourself by doing the real work. The work that allows you to get by in life. The work that accepts the way your brain works and incorporates it rather than denying it. The work your inner critic will rail against because it's dangerous, risky. People will see who you are! They'll judge you!

But I'm tired of fighting. They can judge me if they want to. I'll be upset about it, but at least I won't be at war with myself any more. And at least, rather than viewing my strengths as flukes or exceptions, I can embrace them wholeheartedly as intrinsic and central to who I am.

[darlingarmadillo]

i feel like i see a post like this once a day now and obviously it's good to have boundaries but i think it's funny that there's a loneliness epidemic while people online are always encouraging each other to cut off their friends and family rather than have difficult conversations

[darlingarmadillo]

Not For Puppies

support me on patreon!

[darlingarmadillo]

Mark Twain was such a weird guy and I respect him so deeply for it

[darlingarmadillo]

fiber crafts is like oh you think you know how to count? think again. also count again.

[darlingarmadillo]

Frank Paton - Witness my Act and Deed (1882)

[darlingarmadillo]

chipped

[darlingarmadillo]

I've been going through a rough time with the ol' ADHD lately. Stuff like:

I hate the way I keep telling people I'm going to do something then don't.

I worry I'm going to exhaust people's ability to forgive me when I don't come through on something.

I hate who I am when I'm alone, because alone-me doesn't have the dopamine to spur her to get all the necessary dull shit done.

When I first got diagnosed I was so relieved I cried. Finally, I can get on medication. Finally, I can discover the secret strategies that will fix this problem. Finally, I can be CURED. But my husband (ex) didn't believe ADHD was real, thought it was overdiagnosed, and thought the meds were dangerous. Scrap that idea.

One divorce later and finally in a healthy relationship, I finally cracked under the strain of the pandemic and what it did to my career and decided to try again. I contacted the doctor who had diagnosed me, who very rudely told me that not only had all his records from that far back been destroyed, but he didn't remember me and was pretty sure he would never have diagnosed me. I had to run from provider to provider and take all sorts of tests before I found someone willing to test and diagnose me and prescribe any sort of stimulant.

Even then, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I went to fill my meds, SOMETHING went wrong. I could never have the doctor send it in and just have it be waiting for me. There was always some issue with insurance approval or coverage that they had to muscle through. And heaven forbid I ask them to put some sort of note in my file asking them to call my health insurance when a new prescription comes in, because they will not put such a note in there. I have just accepted now that every month I get it filled (because I'm not allowed to fill it for longer) I'm going to need to call the pharmacy and talk to the pharmacist directly so they will pull the magic levers that will release my meds to me.

Once I was out of state for more than a month. My doctor could not call my prescription in, even though he was licensed in that state, since I saw him in another state, and I could not find a single doctor who would write me a prescription. Eventually I had to go to three different emergency rooms before I found one that would write me a prescription (and then it took me multiple tries for the pharmacy to process my insurance correctly to pay for it.) I was charged $700 for that visit.

So society is set up to blame me (and make me blame myself) for my difficulties in doing things and to disbelieve that ADHD is a thing BUT ALSO to deny me the help that I DO need in order to help me get things done for fear I might ABUSE it.

And even when meds work amazingly well for me, when I can FEEL the brain fog descend on days I didn't take them, I STILL secretly doubt I really had ADHD, or even if I did, it couldn't be THAT bad, because look at all the stuff I've accomplished in my life with no meds whatsoever (last-minute, at the cost of my mental health and self-esteem)! I mean, I still forget things all the time, and beat myself up about it super harshly every time I do, right? If I really had ADHD, meds would cure me, right?

I was in the midst of one of my self-hatred cycles where I hated that I needed to take all these extra steps to get stuff done (duplicate chargers everywhere so I never forget one, writing every appointment, chore, and thought down so I won't forget, coercing my dumb little brain with internet-scrolling dopamine like a lollipop with an unruly toddler so it will be appeased into allowing me to do something boring), that I was such a BURDEN, such a LAZY PROCRASTINATOR, such an UNRELIABLE DISAPPOINTMENT and suddenly it popped into my brain:

Yeah, it sucks that you have to do all these things. But those things are what allow you to get along in the world as it exists. It's not what everyone else has to do, but it's what you have to do, because it's what works. AND it sucks, AND you still have to do it anyway.

I had to grieve the fact that a diagnosis and meds, while they helped me gain control and understanding, did not mean I would ever be cured.

I had to grieve the fact that the person I knew I could be, if I didn't have this pesky dopamine-processing disorder, would never exist.

I had to accept that even though I the world is against me, even in the face of people shaming me for my "laziness" and "flakiness," I still have to live in this world, and do all the crazy, annoying, overly unnecessary things I need to do to survive.

And it sucks.

And I have to do it anyway.

[about adhd

dewgem:

It concerns me that people really don't know that adhd isn't a personality type or behavioral problem.

adhd isn't someone who's personality is driven by fun and disorder.

adhd is someone who's brain goes all over the place looking for dopamine, because it doesn't make or register enough of it, and when it finds a source of dopamine, it hyperfixates on it. it's about deregulation of attention as well as emotions.

it's not a person who can't behave. a person with adhd can look like a lot of things. misconceptions about what adhd looks like kept me from even looking for a diagnosis, and it also kept myself and others (professionals, even) from taking my suspicions seriously.

everyone's encouraged to reblog, but if you don't have adhd, keep your additions to the tags.

lauramkaye:

Smart people can have ADHD. And a lot of the time, they compensate for the ADHD with intelligence- until they reach the point where they just can't overcome it anymore, which is why a lot of gifted + ADHD people have good grades their whole lives and then "suddenly" crash and burn. For some it's college, for some it's grad school, for some it's postgrad or professional exams like the bar. Whenever the things they have to do can no longer be brute-forced at the last minute.

ADHD is often lumped in with learning disabilities but it's really a DOING disability. We know what we should do. Probably we know six ways to do it. The trouble is actually getting our brains to activate so we CAN do it. Sometimes it's like you're being controlled by aliens or something because you say "I need to do X" and you're going to do it and you just. Don't.]

PS, I guarantee there will be replies like "I don't have ADHD but I relate" and my suggestion will be "perhaps you might have it or at least a similar neurodivergence"

And for fellow autistics, be aware that ADHD is our bouncy twin neurology. We often wind up with ADHD inside our autistic wiring. I'm participating in research to see if ADHD is on the broad Mobius spectrum of autism.

[darlingarmadillo]

[darlingarmadillo]

when e.e. cummings said “i’ll live my life if it kills me”

[darlingarmadillo]

Cats Stealing Food in Paintings

Still Life with Cat (1705) by Desportes, It's no use crying over spilt milk (1880) by Frank Paton, Still Life of the Remnants of a Meal with a Lunging Cat (18th Century) by Alexandre-François Desportes, Fish Still Life with Two Cats (1781) by Martin Ferdinand Quadal, Still Life with a Cat and a Mackerel on a Table Top (18th Century) by Giovanni Rivalta, The Collared Thief (1860) by William James Webbe, Cat Stealing a String of Sausages (17th Century) by Abraham van Beyeren, Still Life with a Cat (1760) by Sebastiano Lazzari, Kitchen Still Life with Fish and Cat (ca. 1650) by Sebastian Stoskopff, An Oyster Supper (1882) by Horatio Henry Couldery, Still Life with an Ebony Chest (17th Century) by Frans Snyders, Still Life with a Cat (1724) by Alexandre-Francois Desportes, A Cat Attacking Dead Game (18th Century) by Alexandre-François Desportes, Still Life of Fresh-Water Fish with a Cat (1656) by Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Fruits and Ham with a Cat and a Parrot (18th Century) by Alexandre-Francois Desportes, A Cat Holding a Fish in Its Mouth (18th Century) by Sebastiano Lazzari, Still Life with a Cat and a Hare (18th Century) by Desportes, Still Life with Cat and Rayfish (1728) by Jean-Siméon Chardin, A Cat with Dead Game (1711) by Alexandre-Francois Desportes, Still Life with Cat and Fish (1728) by Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin

Via James Lucas on X/Twitter