#I don't think i ever said on here but my ADHD meds that I was on weren't working and i have yet to start new ones

[guqin-and-flute]

OKAY. I have been doing some really good blocks of writing over the past few weeks--like several sessions with ~2000 words. Unfortunately, a lot of it has been skipping around on different fics (I'm trying to be better about unhealthy sleep habits, so I'm not writing in huge, hyperfixated chunks. Or trying not to 😬).

So, if you would like, feel free to poke, request, remind so it stays on my conscious mind! Do not feel obligated, this is only if you feel the urge, it will get done either way!

[neverendingford]

.

[top-egg-1337]

just wanted to throw my hat in with everyone else immeasurably pissed off about the Gale section of That Interview.

Yes this is all projection, no I don't fucking care. CW for suicidal ideation etc etc

Gale killing himself is not the "right ending". Not only is it ridiculous to suggest that such a concept exists for a game with as many permutations as BG3, it's also blatantly affirming that suicide is A Good Choice, Actually, for people with disabilities (including neurodivergence and mental illnesses).

Like Gale, I talk way too much about the things I'm passionate about to the point where people find me annoying. Like Gale, I fumble social interactions a lot. Like Gale, I have never had many friends. Like Gale, if I fall for someone, it happens fast and I'm super awkward about it until I feel secure with them. Like Gale, I have made mistakes that felt catastrophic. Like Gale, my continued survival relies on assistance from others and this makes me feel like a burden. Like Gale, I have spent extended periods of my life thinking I was better off dead.

If any of these ring true for you, first of all...

Fuck, lads(gender neutral), we're really playing through life on honour mode huh? it couldn't be fucking easy...

Secondly, asking for help, and being vulnerable enough to accept that help, is a bigger show of strength than Minsc climbing out of a mimic.

Thirdly, you really, truly, are not better off dead. If you read that and think I'm lying to make you feel better, I get it. I've felt that way countless times. But there are countless moments for your life to improve, and those moments die the moment you do.

I didn't think I'd make it to 20. I'm 27 now. I'm married, and we're in the process of buying a house. We have a delightfully grumpy dog who we recued 4 years ago. He's 14 now.

It's still hard. This year felt impossible at times. I thought I'd finally got my life on track after starting ADHD meds, started my first ever full-time job, and had to quit after 3 months - 2 of those months being on sick leave.

I felt mortified. Everything I'd worked for crumbled, what even was the point in trying to improve myself if I couldn't trust my body or mind to keep their shit together when it mattered most?

But here I am. And weirdly, I'm maybe the happiest I've ever been, despite being in the middle of months of medical investigations where cancer is a real possibility.

I often felt like it was my destiny to kill myself.

Fuck destiny.

As Elminster said:

Be a moon unto yourself. Even the waves of fate can break upon the shores of will.

[schizopositivity]

So I was searching for a new psychiatrist online, and every website filter, every description they have, for individual providers and medical groups will include a whole bunch of different mental illnesses and life situations that they specialize in. Basically every mental illness and stressful life situation you could think of. But I didn't see schizophrenia or psychosis on any list. They had mental illnesses that can have psychotic symptoms (like bipolar disorder or PTSD) and mental illnesses that have overlapping symptoms with schizophrenia (like ASD and ADHD) but didn't have psychosis or schizophrenia anywhere.

And this is so frustrating, because I'm used to therapists not knowing how to treat schizophrenia/psychosis at all, that's been every therapist I've ever had and I've sadly learned to deal with that. But for psychiatrists, I'd really love to be able to be prescribed high doses of antipsychotics by someone who knows how that affects people. Someone who has enough experience to list that as a specialty. I live in a small city with a long list of psychiatrists, I even checked ones farther away that could do online sessions. Still after hours of combing through websites I found nothing. I was even told by my therapist that normal primary care providers regularly hesitate or refuse to prescribe antipsychotics because it's a "liability".

And it feels so unfair. Seeing psychiatrists say "mental health is so important! I can help you find your best self!" while ignoring all of us who rely on antipsychotics to function. For me my antipsychotics are the biggest reason I'm alive today, that I have a job, that I have a long term relationship, that I have friends, that I can even function. Going off of antipsychotics is not a safe option for me.

The pharmacy requires refill approval from a psychiatrist or Dr. so that I can have access to my meds. And I shouldn't have to keep settling for mental health care workers who don't understand my illness, don't want to prescribe my meds, and don't care to try.

I don't understand how there can be such a major gap in mental health care that's never even talked about. For a lot of us with schizophrenia, antipsychotics are extremely important, and going off of them can have major consequences. The fact that medication can dramatically improve our lives is incredible, but the fact that so many mental health care workers don't understand it, don't want to prescribe it, or just guess when prescribing it is horrendous, and has life-changing consequences for us.

It feels so isolating to not even be on a long list of mental health problems, and to speak to countless people who've dedicated their life to the mental health field, yet don't even consider you as an option. I just got rejected by a group of 6 psychiatrists working in an office together. In a quick email they said they wouldn't be able to provide care for me. Apparently all of them, who are available and licensed to care for people with mental illnesses, don't even think it's possible that any one of them could help me. All I need is medication refill approval, but apparently they can't do that. It feels so defeating but I'm going to keep trying because I have to.

I am not an anomaly, I am one small part of a large group of people with my same diagnosis. And we all need care at the bare minimum, but we deserve care that has us in mind for once. One day, I'd like to think, that a profession centered around helping people with various mental illnesses and struggles, would add us to the list. Because we are here regardless.

[ikeasharksss]

here's the thing. i think will in mortal aus would be a good doctor. a solid, in character choice. but canon will? hm. that's a bit more complicated

none of the demigods we meet in the rrverse are, like, Thrilled about their godly parent's guardianship. like percy isn't a marine biology freak who spends every summer at the beach before he realizes he's the son of poseidon. & even after he realizes, he's never like "oh my GODS i have such a PASSION for CONEY ISLAND!!!!" we don't see that in anyone else either: piper doesn't care for beauty much before & after she is claimed, nico didnt show any hades traits before bianca died & he goes rogue, and frank was actually afraid of showing aggression (around others at least) before he was claimed if i remember son right. the only exception i can think of is leo bc he worked in his mom's garage as a kid. but even then, he isn't a mechanic bc of his dad, he's a mechanic bc of his mom. (we don't know how academic-oriented annabeth was before she came to chb. it's possible that, bc she came so young, she formed her childhood personality around athena, since she had nothing else to hold on to.) so, therefore, i don't think demigods are enthusiastic about their godly parent's guardianship specifically bc of their godly parent. i don't think will would be enthusiastic about being a doctor just bc of apollo.

being a healer at a summer camp & being a field medic in a monster war is very different from being a doctor in a clinic, hospital, or private practice. the type of illnesses, injuries, & disorders a doctor sees in the field would be very different from what will sees in his healer career. we don't actually see much of the healing process in the books outside of ambrosia & nectar, but it's obvious that will would never use them if he became a real doctor. i don't think his healing skills would translate into doctor skills.

additionally, ive seen a lot of ppl in the fandom point out that will would have to relearn all his medical knowledge if he went to med school. that's true! add in his adhd & i don't think will would be to happy to sit through 7(?) years of school learning things he either A) already knows or B) would never use bc he has healing powers.

sure, i think will would CONSIDER becoming a doctor. it makes sense! that's the only life he's ever known! but i think he'd go get a bachelor's in biology & realize after like 3 semesters that it sucks.

"but tumblr user ikeasharksss!" i hear you say. "what profession would will go into if he isn't a doctor!!!!" oh don't worry. Don't Worry. he'd go into pharmaceutical sciences.

hear me out! ive already said we don't know much about healing outside of ambrosia & nectar. & those are basically just the demigod equivalent of mortal medications. will already works so closely w/ them, so it'd make sense for him to be interested in creating an alternative that is safe for mortals. in pharmaceutical science, will could research & make mortal medicine!! it would scratch his innate need to help ppl while also engaging his mortal side!!!!!

thanks baes

[bomberqueen17]

realizations

this is just me having medical realizations and again wishing I had someone to help me coordinate my medical care. I hear rumors some people use primary care physicians for this but mine doesn't do that kind of thing, so I'm writing things out here instead.

physical therapy:

shit got so busy last week that i fell off the wagon for the first time. I've only ever missed a single day of the thrice-weekly physical therapy exercises since I was first prescribed them in January; on two occasions I think I've wound up doing them only twice in a week. But last Tuesday, I woke up and did a few of them and then ran out of time, and then worked three twelve-hour days in a row, and a fourth day I worked six hours and then drove four more. And then I was visiting friends and had horrible menstrual cramps. So I just didn't climb back onto the wagon.

I haven't had bad sciatic nerve pain at any point during any of that. Sure, toward the end of the long days on my feet I was taking any opportunity to sit, and I was doing some of the pt stretches, and it's not that the sciatic nerve didn't hurt at all. But it didn't keep me up. And I now am back to a normal level of physical activity, and I slept in a bad position last night and am experiencing no consequences today.

I'll go back to them-- need to figure out today if I have an appointment tomorrow or Thursday first-- and I'm sure not saying the exercises caused the sciatic nerve pain-- but it sure is a fucking data point isn't it.

ADHD meds:

I have managed to take two doses of Ritalin about four times in the last two weeks. It used to be that I would at least really notice the first dose, but I've been faithful enough with it that at this point my body doesn't seem to react to it at all. I can't tell whether I've taken it, most days, and that means I don't notice it wearing off and I don't think to take the second one. I know it shouldn't work like that but it definitely doesn't. There have been days I've forgotten both doses, though, and there's no real difference in those days. And that time I tried to sew those bike shorts was one of my most obvious two-dose days.

I don't need help focusing my attention, which seems to be what the stimulants do. My manifestation of ADHD is not distraction. I have always been able to focus on a task. What I cannot do is initiate a task, change a task, or perform a sequence of tasks that depend on one another, beyond a very simple list structure. Last night I had to entirely admit defeat because coordinating a sequence of tasks was beyond me. It was an embarrassingly simple sequence of tasks: I had to drop my car off for service, and get dinner, and the hardest part was that I had to coordinate a person accompanying me in a second vehicle so I could get a ride home. And there was a time constraint, and I could not do any of it because I could not initiate the task of looking up which takeout restaurants were nearby. "Solve one thing at a time," Dude said, and proceeded to help me, but I said "i can't solve one thing at a time, because if I solve one thing I will not then be able to initiate the solving of the second thing, and then the second problem will derail the rest of my night."

On my own I would not have been able to feed myself dinner, I think. I would have had to abandon that very simple task as unsolvable. I simply could not hold two things in my mind long enough to consider it. It was absolutely stupid.

Relatedly I was trying to figure out how to calculate the sale price of an item, and it was 60% off the listed price, and I know to get 60% of something you multiply it by .6, so I was trying to do that and then subtract the number I got from the original number, and I tried it literally nine times without being able to remember the .6 result long enough to then type it back into the calculator. Yes, I know you can just times it by .4 instead now, and I also know that at any moment I could have gotten up and gotten a piece of paper, or gotten a second calculator, or taken a screenshot, but all of those solutions were so cumbersome and involved me abandoning my initial task that I could not figure out how to use them. I finally asked someone else and they told me the answer and also how to use the times .4 method, which I had considered but wasn't confident enough in.

All of this is related, I think, to me having basically no working memory. I cannot hold a thing in my mind while I contemplate a second thing. And I don't know if any ADHD medication would ever help with that. That is the root of almost all of my problems: I know, from long experience, that I have to continually maintain the single thing I am focused on in my mind, and if I try to think of any second thing, I either can't, or if I succeed, will lose the first thing irrevocably. So i can't use most of the problem-solving skills I know fine well how to use. I can't get fucking anything done. (I give amazing advice, always have, because I've spent a ton of time figuring out how to solve problems and then discovering that I can't actually use any of those methods successfully.) And, I can pretty conclusively state after these several months of experimentation: ADHD stimulant meds have zero effect on this problem.

I don't know if any meds have any effect on this problem. It may well be that there is nothing to be done for my condition, medication-wise. I guess I'm glad I was able to try medication, since it is such a miracle for so many people. I guess I'm just sad it wasn't a miracle for me. But it hasn't addressed any of my problems so I don't see a point in continuing it.

Possibly what I need is some other kind of therapy, some kind of like behavioral therapy or life coaching or something, I don't know. It would help me enormously, I think, to have a lifestyle with a predictable routine and very little dislocation, but that's not possible for me with my current job and life situation. And I don't know how to discover what kind of therapies even exist, and I know the psych provider I've been seeing will not be able to recommend anything in the three minutes we get per meeting. So I might just be out of options, now. But I guess I'm glad at least I tried.

I really wish I had some kind of doctor overseeing all of my medical care I could consult about this, but I don't, I only have the individual specialists. So I'm on my own and I'm just trying to work around my severe memory problems by writing things out, I guess.

Currently I am just going to have to accept that there's literally no way I'm going to be able to figure out how to get to Rochester and back this week, so I'm going to give up on retrieving my critical personal electronics and just wait until I head back to the farm to get them on my way through. Which sucks and I am sad about but I just don't know how to coordinate the logistics and incorporate that into my life, so I'm going to stop worrying about it. This is how I get through things: I just let almost everything go, and live with whatever I can pick up in the aftermath. C'est la vie!

Oh huh you can't add more tags onto posts once you've stopped adding them huh. Fascinating choice, Tumblr.

[talentisntgenius]

Heard you like PJhazel, so hope you don't mind some incorrect quotes I have made but am too shy to post on my blog, i know alot people don't enjoy incorrect quotes so feel free to ignore this message if you don't but if you...enjoy

Pj: I AM IN A BAD MOOD! NO ONE TALK TO ME!

Hazel: 🥺🥺🥺

Pj: Alright, fine. You can talk to me. BUT NO ONE ELSE! I MEAN IT!

-------------

Pj: hazel just said "I have an appetite for destruction" and then she reached down and untied my shoe.

____________

Hazel: Your legs look great in those pants.

Pj: You should see me without them.

Hazel:...

Hazel: Why would you take your legs off?!

--------------

Pj *covered in hickeys and scratches from hazel but refusing to admit who they're from*: I don't kiss and tell.

Josie, from across the room: That's literally the only two things you do!

_________

Sylvie: I dare you to kiss the next person who walks in this room. 

Pj: Fuck you, I’m not kissing anyone- 

*Hazel, walks into the room*

Pj: ...Fine, I'll do it. Rules are rules.

__________

Pj: Hazel; my beautiful girlfriend, taught me to think before I act.

Pj: …So if I beat the shit out of you, rest assured that I thought about it and am confident in my decision.

_______

Pj: Hey, babe, remember how I had to go to the pharmacy to pick up my ADHD meds?

Hazel: Yes?

Pj: Well, it turns out they're all out for the next five days.

Hazel: Fuck.

Pj: It's gonna be a fun week!

Hazel: I'm going to josie and isabel’s house.

Pj: Nuh-uh. Through sickness and health, motherfucker.

_________

Hazel: this is a stupid idea!

Pj: Hey, nothing we’ve done so far has been un-stupid, and we’re still alive, aren’t we?

Hazel: I can’t really argue with that, but I feel like I should.

------------

Pj: not that I'm complaining, but when I asked for a spoon, I meant the utensil.

Hazel *hugging her from behind*: Oh.

-----------

Pj: How do I tell hazel that I want her to yell at me like she's Gordon Ramsay and I'm a poor little chef who just ruined a crème brûlée?

________

Josie: Wow you and pj are home early from the movies. What happened?

Hazel: We got kicked out because pj wouldn't stop yelling diving scores as people jumped off the titanic.

Pj: That last guy had a solid 8, I'm telling you!

__________

Pj: We have a problem.

Hazel *is done with her shit*: No, YOU have a problem. I have an idiot who keeps making them

__________

Hazel: Hey, wanna have sex?

Pj: I have a gun in that nightstand beside the bed. If I ever say no to that question, I want you to take it out and shot me because I’ve obviously gone crazy.

-------------

Pj: Before "the huntungton incident", I had so many interests. Now all I care about is whether or not Hazel had a good day.

-------------

Hazel: for the last time pj, they're called "hikes" not "stupid mental health walks"

Pj: I don't see a difference

________

Pj: Hazel is good at kissing. So good I want to punch the ahit out of the person who taught her.

---------

Pj: You know what would be sexy?

Hazel: What?

Pj: Eating food off each other.

Hazel: You didn't do the dishes, did you?.

Pj: ..I did not.

-----------

That's all I've got, hope you enjoy!

Anon I just gotta say, neurodiverse PJ is so real and you were brave enough to say it!!!! You heard it here folks: pjhazel aduhd couple (real) (canon)

Loved the last three in particular and the spoon one it's so them lmaooooo thanks for this! <3

[iamyouknow-yours]

Hey besties,

I need some advice. I need help convincing my mom to allow me to get a wheelchair. Our medical aid will cover it so money is not the problem. I'll explain what I have and what her problem with me getting a wheelchair is:

20 years old

POTS

Raynaud's as a secondary condition

Autistic

ADHD

The POTS was diagnosed July 14th 2022

Today is September 1st 2022

Autism was diagnosed December 15th 2021

I've obviously had the autism my whole life though.

And POTS since puberty. It's idiopathic POTS meaning they don't know what caused it.

My POTS has gotten worse since I first got it, particularly in the past 2 years.

-

I need a wheelchair. I have immense fatigue as well as attacks of headaches and extreme nausea that can come on suddenly.

I mean I'm nauseous pretty much all of the time but it can become way worse just randomly.

The wheelchair would be to help with the immense fatigue.

-

My mom agreed (semi-reluctantly but still) that I could get a wheelchair. This was a week or two ago.

She (able-bodied and prone to ableism) changed her mind after talking to her (able-bodied) therapist.

-

This morning she came into my room to start yelling at me and say that no I can't get a wheelchair.

My fatigue is apparently caused by the fact that I'm unfit.

-

She called me getting a wheelchair a regression and she says that I glamourise disability and being disabled because of youtubers like Jessica Kellgren-Fozard.

-

(I have made her watch a few including Jessica's excellent video about having a mobility aid not meaning you're giving up and I watch Jessica quite a lot I like her.)

-

(I do not however want to be disabled. Obviously? I wish I had the energy to be out all the time and living not in my house and working and earning my own money and seeing my friends and not be in pain all the fucking time. I do not glamourise disability.)

-

The point is she's ableist and she loves me and so she's worried that I spend too much time in bed

(^^ caused by lack of energy, which is not going to be cured by exercise. Exercise is not a fucking magical cure)

She's worried because I should be out with my fellow young people.

-

She thinks I need to try exercising with a biokineticist, and go to her chiropractor, and try the new meds for an unspecified period of time before she will, maybe, agree to me getting a wheelchair.

-

I'm devastated. I was nervous but so excited about getting a wheelchair because it would mean I could see my friends more.

And go on walks without worrying I was going to be too tired to come back.

It would mean I could unpack the dishwasher without using half my energy.

It would mean I could go to Pride next year and not be in immense pain for a week afterwards.

It might mean I could get a university degree.

-

Of course my mother thinks I could and should be doing all these things now and that I'm just too unfit and that's the whole problem.

I'm not disabled, I'm unfit.

-

She's said she'd rather drive me to the park so I can hang out with my friends there and then drive us back than me have a wheelchair.

-

Please help me if you can. Any ways your wheelchair has helped you do more?

Or function better in our ableist capitalist society?

Has it helped you to have more energy or less nausea somehow?

Have you ever convinced a parent/guardian to get a wheelchair?

-

I wish I could move out but I can't live alone. I'm in the process of applying for a disability grant but it's so pitiful here in South Africa it's maximum R1900 which is 110 US Dollars/110 Euros/95 British Pounds.

-

Thank you in advance for your help, I appreciate it <3

P.S. Most of the post is in a big font so it's easier to read for other disabled peeps :)

[bjfinn]

If you’re still up for it, Beetlejuice or Dewey (or both) for the character ask game? :D

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

23. Favorite picture of this character?

I'm always up for answering questions about my two favourite boys! So here we go ...

A headcanon I have for this character?

1. Beetlejuice: Lol -- that's a tough one to choose! I've written so many of them into my stories -- with more to come.

Beej has SOOO many issues, and it's no wonder. It's canon that his mother was verbally abusive -- we saw that during the wedding scene. It's likely that she was physically abusive, as well, though -- at least, that's what I think. If he were human, I'd say that he has ADHD, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, childhood trauma -- he's a walking, talking example of just about everything in the DSM. But since he isn't, there's no way to tell what is neurodivergence and what is just regular demon behaviour.

I feel that he doesn't like the Netherworld AT ALL -- not just because it's such a drab, dreary and dismal place, but also because he doesn't really have any good memories associated with it. As a half-ghost half-demon, he would have been hated and shunned by everyone. Ghosts would have been afraid of his demon side, and the demons would have considered him a dirty half-breed and bullied him horribly at every opportunity -- killing his pet sandworm, even sexually abusing him. And, because his own mother hated him, he probably felt that he deserved everything they did to him. He probably still feels that way.

2. Dewey Finn: First, I have no doubt that Dewey has ADHD -- and it's uncontrolled. He was probably diagnosed as a kid, but the doctors couldn't seem to get the dosage right for his medication, so once he was old enough he said "Fuck it" and went off meds completely.

I believe he's basically a good person, but doesn't always (or ever?) think through the consequences of his actions -- another ADHD trait. This has gotten him into trouble all his life -- at home, at school, with his band ... Nonetheless, his heart's in the right place, even if he thinks with his ass sometimes lol

I also believe that neither of them really knows how to fight -- Beej always relied on magic to defeat his enemies, while Dewey depended on his quick wits and his mouth to avoid physical conflict. So when they get into it with each other in my stories, it's meant to be more of a slapstick comedy thing than a Frasier vs Ali "Rumble in the Jungle".

Now, you might be wondering why Beej doesn't ever use his magic to win against Dewey -- he could easily defeat him without hurting him, after all. I think, once Beej becomes friends with someone, he puts a geis on himself prohibiting him from doing so. It's an Irish word (pronounced "gesh") that refers to a sacred obligation or prohibition, and was a feature of pre-Christian Irish culture. Sometimes a geis would last only until it had been fulfilled once, but sometimes it was for life. And you can't remove it yourself -- a geis can only be removed by the person who had laid it on you. But since he placed the geis on himself, he can't remove it.

What's my favourite thing to do when writing for this character?

No matter what I'm writing, I like -- no, need -- to voice-act the dialogue. Not just doing their voices, though -- I actually adopt their mannerisms, as well. (It's subconscious -- I just do it automatically.) So for Beej, that means the vocal fry, the raptor movements, the lip- biting, all of it. And for Dewey, it's his smoother voice (which is a bit higher than mine -- he's a tenor, while I'm a baritone), as well as his stutter when he gets excited or flustered, his rapid head shaking when he hears something that doesn't track at first (like in the song "Stick It to the Man", when Billy says he can't tell if his mom is happy after she's had Botox lol), his manic ADHD energy -- the whole bit. (I really should have become an actor lol.)

I do this for the other characters, too -- it's the best way to make sure that the dialogue doesn't sound stilted. Mind you, my cousin (who lives with me) probably thinks I need to be institutionalised -- and he might very well be right! 😜🤣

I also like listening to music as I write -- but it has to be the right music for the character. That's why I started making the playlists.

Favourite picture of this character?

This last question I'll have to answer in a separate post -- for some reason not all my photos show up in my gallery on Tumblr (maybe it's because I'm on a tablet idk). And it's really difficult to choose! I love just about all of the pics I've seen, but ... I'll pick out one for each of them and post them.

Thanks for asking -- I really enjoyed it! 😁

[pandor-pandorkful]

Cat name lore I don't think I've ever mentioned here before? My two cats have basically kept their shelter names, which I guess has kinda resulted in having two very stereotypically named cats... but I can't bear to change them now. And they just kinda fit their names anyway.

I don't know if Simon was a name the shelter came up with or if his elderly former owners were just the type to do the "sounds like the breed" kind of naming convention... but Simon the Siamese cat sounds so painfully 1960s children's book, doesn't it?

But I dunno, it just just fits him. He's deviously smart, a little grumpy, but so gentle and considerate. If he were human, I could see him as a crusty old poet living/working in a lighthouse. Idk why, but that sounds very Simon-ish to me.

Yet it's hard to cutesy up his name, cuz Simey sounds too close to Siamese. :B (he's my Simey-wimey anyways)

Gar is orange. He's so very very very orange. It would not be a far stretch of the imagination to assume the shelter named him after Garfield.

BUT! I know for a fact that there was an Enid in his litter! So I am nearly certain my Gar was named after Mr. Gar from OK KO. (Besides, if you were going to name an orange cat Garfield I think you'd likely commit to it.)

My Gar is still pretty young, so it's hard to say that he'll ever develop Mr. Gar's gruff facade, but he has that sweet enthusiasm his namesake had as a young hero. Like I said, my Gar is extremely orange. He's overly enthusiastic, stubborn and stupid a lot of the time (he likes jumping UP on THINGS, but he's still terrified to jumping DOWN), but he can be extremely emotionally intelligent and knows just when me or Simon need him to snuggle with.

So I ended up with a Simon and a Gar, which created a new silly name issue: the "Oh like Simon & Garfunkle?!" response. XD

At first I considered leaning into that, but ultimately decided that 1: I don't know musicians, I only know songs and idk if I can confidently match any songs to S&G lmao, and 2: defying folks expectations is just instinctive for me at this point.

So I decided Gar's full name was Garbanzo Bean.

And that's the cat name lore \o/

I guess this is also my "woo got my adhd meds again yay!!' post. XD

[bengesko]

Am I going nuts? I think I am? I can't tell if I am in the wrong here???

Rowan and I discussed going out, but the snow behind our cars was frozen solid, and we couldn't break up the ice. We can't legally salt here, so Rowan went back to their office, and Annie just shrugs and goes back to her game.

Not once did either of them mention that they NEEDED stuff. So I ordered a bit of groceries from instacart using my money. It shows up, I put it away in my fridge, and go to bed.

Idk what happened but Rowan barges in after I'm asleep and says wtf why didn't you ask, you could have used my card, we're running low on milk and now we can't order anything now because it's an ice rink out there and no one will be driving.

Every time I ever go to the store, I ask if they need anything. Last time I did this, Rowan said "If I need something, I'll tell you."

Neither Rowan NOR Annie mentioned they needed anything when I discussed actually going out, so I didn't think they needed anything.

I mean part of me is thinking I was selfish because I mostly ordered caffeine and got another big container of greens (because we go through a lot in this household), but Rowan didn't say anything about NEEDING anything.

Also, I didn't even REALIZE we were low on milk, because apparently, Annie bought two half gallons of EGG NOG instead of milk, and now they're all "We're low on milk" Why is the MILK a problem??? Matilda is happy to drink water- it's her fav beverage!!! And we have plenty of fish sticks, we have stuff to make pizza, we are FINE on food, and you're mad at me over MILK because Annie decided egg nog was more important???

So I have no idea how to express that I didn't mean to be malicious, selfish or what have you, my autistic ass didn't hear "We need this" so I didn't bother, because the last time i asked, I was told not to ask...

And now I'm hiding in my room, purposely working on making it so I'm awake while they're asleep, and will be going to bed when they're waking up, because I don't know if they're still mad at me, and I'm still in "jumping at every footstep outside my door" mode.

I feel like this is a huge misunderstanding/case of miscommunication and maybe Rowan just being burnt out because we've had Matilda all week AND we're out of her ADHD meds, but like...

I haven't been in hypervigilant mode in almost a year, and I did NOT miss this. At all.

It SUCKS.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

blorbo question: what kinds of drugs do you think ed would be into? which ones would help him and which ones would make him feel worse?

Ok so I project onto Ed so this might be colored by my own drug experiences, but I'll do my best. I'll tell you generally what I think he'd like and the I'll put up a cut and go through all the ones I've done and tell you how I think Ed would be on them.

General before I get into specifics. Canonically he uses stimulants during the Kraken era and weed socially. However I do kinda feel like Rhino Horn is not his favorite drug just the most manageable way to get a hit of endorphins while also being able to oversee raids so he can break Ned Lowe's record. I am biased because I'm a psychedelic enjoyer, but Ed's a pretty confident guy who doesn't really second guess himself until after he acts (lbr the man did not second guess fucking knife parade for like multiple years and he doesn't apologize). Of course he also hates himself but I don't think that makes him not confident, which being confident and not immediately second guessing yourself is a great personality for producing good hallucinogenic experiences. Hallucinogens are usually great if you're not afraid of them. And I also think that Ed wants to be taken out of his life for a little bit and hallucinogens are conducive to that. I think he and Jack probably did a bit of P&P back in the day and I think ecstasy was probably their favorite because Jack is a tweaker and Ed is a psychedelics guy. Now that he and Stede are together he's doing poppers.

Onto specifics. What makes him better, what makes him worse

Ok here's the drugs I have experience with: Meth, Mushrooms, Weed, Coke, LSD, GHB, and DMT. So I'll just give you those.

Let's start with coke and weed because we have canon evidence for those.

Cocaine Rhino Horn- ok so for me personally coke kinda ain't shit. It's the best stimulant by far (ecstasy is a stimulant/hallucinogen so I'm not counting it because it's also something else) but it's still just sort of me but faster. I've said many a time that Coke is my ADHD meds but horny and Meth is like my ADHD meds but evil. I can drive on the shit literally better than I drive sober because I am less distracted. And before someone accuses me of micro dosing I can pack the shit away, I do twice as much as whoever I'm with and get half as high, every ounce of coke ive ever done was waisted on me. I have fun on it it's not a bad feeling but I it's like if coffee was poppers rather than a real drug. I think Ed probably has a similar experience here with being relatively coherent because we see him doing raids while high on the stuff. I think coke is giving him that little euphoria bump he needs to be passively suicidal instead of actively suicidal and not much else. That said once I did like three lines and then went to the wrong bus station subsequently missing my bus (I ordered my Uber before doing the coke so it was not the coke's fault) and I had a tantrum but I did not cry or start doom spiraling over the 200$ I was forced to pay, so I'm gonna go with a tentative better? For how coke makes Ed.

Weed- Ed also displays a high tolerance here, given that he shares a blunt with Mary and then he's sober in the next scene. That being said I think if he had more than half a blunt he would get emotional very quickly. If he's in a good mood he gets clingy and everyone around him is his favorite person and if he's in a bad mood he starts crying. Weed would make him worse and I know this about him

Meth- Tina is my enemy I hate her. They told me it was highly addictive and would make you crazy and then it just gave me insomnia and a weird bowl movement. Did you know while on meth you don't get hungry but you do get hangry? You can't sleep you can't eat but your body doesn't stop needing to eat and sleep. I've done meth exactly twice and once was on accident (the idiot I smoked shrooms with didn't clean his fucking pipe and I did not realize I had imbibed methamphetamine until about 24 hours later when I had been trying and failing to sleep for roughly 10 hours). Anyway I think given how hangry Ed gets meth would make him worse in every conceivable way. Meth also makes me more focused so I think he would invent some diabolical scheme and it would be a genuinely good one and then he would also lose his fucking mind and pulverize the next thing to surprise him after not eating for 18 hours (imagine the snake scene from 1x07 but on... Well on meth I guess) and cry because he is so so tired.

GHB- for those of you not in the know this is a depressant but not an opioid that is sometimes used as a daterape drug because it's got an incredibly dangerous interaction with alcohol but is mostly manageable on its own. It's not entirely dissimilar to high doses of alcohol in its high ill be honest, but maybe I just haven't had enough depressants to be able to tease apart their distinct personalities. I enjoyed this one but I think I'm gonna let my experience diverge from Ed's a little bit here. I don't think he would be a fan. He might be alright with it if he and Stede were doing it together as a sexual aid, but it tastes really bad, like putting bitterant directly into your mouth levels of bad, and we know Ed is a sweet tooth. The poor old man would also get tired on it a lot quicker than I did, and I remember laying there like I was asleep with a pleasant buzz in my brain and not really wanting to get up for quite a bit of it.

DMT- So dmt isn't good unless you're doing a near death experience type breakthrough trip otherwise you see some fun colors for 20 minutes and then it's over. I cannot speak to the breakthrough trip because I did it with a Grindr date and I did not want to be at his mercy for a half an hour while I was experiencing The Tunnel. However from what I've heard of the breakthrough trip, that shit is a mental game. You don't want to do that third rip but you've gotta. Ed loves to win at games and he's got some mental fortitude so I think he would flex how much he likes DMT. It would make him WORSE

LSD- I love her everyone loves her Lucy is my best friend. She's a bit... Lovecraftian but certainly not in a bad way. I think acid would really depend where Ed was at mentally. Like Ed when Stede is around would have a good time taking to the universe. I think that talking to the universe during the Kraken era could go really well or really really horrendously. On the one hand I wonder if ego death might actually be good for him? Like feeling like you're one with everything and like you aren't real could be either freeing for a guy who hates himself that much or it could end up making him hate everything because his self hatred could get as expensive as his dissolving ego. I think immediately pre Stede however acid would not be the best idea this is a vibe I'm getting. Acid has the potential to go either way on the better worse question.

Mushrooms- mushrooms have always been really nice to me but I need to be up and doing something while I'm on them. Totally a club drug for me. I know that's an insane thing to say but I think my brain chemistry may be fucked up. Anyway this does not make Ed better or worse but it does make him look at stuff and giggle which is objectively cute.

[papermonkeyism]

For the new year, I wish I'll get to hang out with people again.

This past year has been, frankly, pretty miserable, specially since early summer-ish when my DnD group went on a months long break. Wasn't the first one, nor the last one, but definetely the worst one. Don't really have other friends locally, aside from one old school mate.

Honestly it's been pretty bad ever since the start of the pandemic when we stopped hanging out outside of DnD sessions and my fave coffee places closed down along with couple of my fave restaurants, and I just... Stopped having a social life, but now it's so much worse. As said, I have one (1) friend outside of the group I sometimes go shopping with, and one of my DnD buddies hangs out with me maybe once a week to borrow my laundry machine for couple hours, and they are probably the only reasons I haven't broken completely so far.

But neither of them are storytelling people the same way I am, so I'm kinda holding back when we hang out, as I can't really go all in with my special interests on them.

Downsides of being socially awkward introvert.

The summer break from roleplaying was a trigger for anxiety and maybe the worst creative block of my life so far. As someone who basically thinks with a sketchbook it was pretty fucking stressful not being able to draw anything for several months!

I crave creation and storytelling, but my brain is made of goo. Like imagine if someone came and asked you to pick a water from a pool and hand it to them? But it's liquid! Can I get a cup or something, but they just scoff. You got hands, right, just pick one up and hand it over. So I'm just left trying to scoop handfuls of wet and grabbing nothing. Kinda how it feels.

Started marathoning Crit Role to distract myself from the worst of it and to have at least some kind of creative energy in my life, and consumed what must be over half a thousand hours of role playing. At least that was fun!

And when nights started stretching and seasonal depression started to creep into my already not-doing-good brain I started my routine of evening walks because at some point I was legitimately going stir crazy enough to explode otherwise.

It's also been my first full year of joblessness in a long while. I was already having hard time by the end of last year, because my brain has difficulty handling full time jobs for long stretches of time, and ten months in a row not being able to recharge was starting to weight on me, so I had made a plan to get my brain sorted out with the ADHD diagnosis and hopefully medication before applying for jobs again, but turns out the process took the entire year, and then some, and I still don't have the meds yet. I have been given the thumbs up on them, but turns out me stressing for the better part of a year has triggered blood pressure problems (runs in my family, so honestly probably just a matter of time, but it's still very inconvenient to happen right now), so I have to sort that out first before it's safe to try stimulant medication.

And then there was the death in the family and a close friend's cancer diagnosis (fingers crossed!) and I just haven't had a great time, you know.

January's going to go into medical stuff in the hope of getting the ADHD meds, so maybe I could one day grab those thoughts again. The unemployment office is also pestering me again, so we'll see how that'll go.

I think I'll see if I can make myself a regular at the new cat cafe in town. Cats make everything better. Also looking forwards to actualizing a tattoo plan or two! Springtime is coming too, eager to continue my evening walk routine with returning sunlight. And I really, really, really need to create something again.

So here's for what I sincerely hope to be a better year than this past one! Cheers.

[compassionatereminders]

omg, i came here to tell you something about adhd meds and it was sort of the topic since yesterday? lol anyways as someone who was denied adhd meds for years i literally don't care who uses what as a drug, have fun with it i actually came with good news! ok so, i'm pretty sure i have inattentive adhd because i've been doing research on it for years and i'm a cis woman so no doctor ever believed me when i told them i'm having trouble with what possibly is adhd. they never allowed me to take adhd tests or anything. they just looked at me and said "no, i don't think that's it. looks like just anxiety" after having the same interaction with so many doctors, i figured they will not help me so i shouldn't talk to them about it. but yesterday i went to see a psychiatrist, for my depression not adhd, while talking about it she noticed me fidgetting a lot and asked me about it. i told her i didn't know the reason (lie) but it's been like that since i was a child (truth). then we talked about some other stuff that could be related to adhd too like executive dysfunction etc but we never mentioned adhd. in the end, i just asked her for a med to make me feel better because i've been depressed. she prescribed me an antidepressant. it's wellbutrin if anyone's curious. i like to read about my meds and how it affected other people. i know everyone's experiences are different but it helps me figure out what to expect at the best or the worst, you know? and when i started reading about it, i saw sooo many people who were prescribed it for adhd or took it to feel better like me and have seen effects on their adhd!!! this makes me sooo happy! i've totally gave up on getting help for my adhd but now i can see the tiny bit of hope :'))) i'm starting it today i hope it'll be good for me, the effects of this one feels like my dream meds!! sorry this is a little long and thank you for reading !

Damn I hate when medical ableism gets in the way of proper evaluations... But I'm glad there was a silver lining and I really hope this med works well for you!

[teasetmonster]

So, I hadn't realized this, but it looks like I haven't really said much about my progressive illness, ME/CFS, on tumblr post-2017. And I imagine that as I post here more again, I'll encounter people who are unfamiliar with me, so I'll try to give a synopsis:

I started having increasingly frequent headaches and then constant burning in my eyes in high school, which we might have payed more attention to if, in my senior year, we hadn't discovered a congenital malformation in my brain that would end up either killing me or permanently damaging my brain if not removed. Before going off to college, I had a craniotomy (surgical procedure where they cut open your skull; I have a big scar under my hair) to remove it that went well.

In college the headaches became one singular headache that just didn't ever end, and the pain started expanding down my body. We started paying attention at this point, but were still kind of distracted as my anxiety and depressive disorders were discovered and diagnosed and I started treatment for them that went well.

I took a medical leave of absence as the headache grew worse, I struggled in school for a mystery reason that I now know was ADHD, and I developed gallstones (I ended up having my gallbladder removed). Over the next couple years, the headache increased to a migraine with the extra symptoms migraines involve and the pain expanded to encompass my entire body. In 2016, I then started experiencing Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which I was lucky enough to be diagnosed with 6 months into my fatigue symptoms. As my fatigue increased, my cognitive function was impaired and it became increasingly rare that I was able to think clearly enough to draw, hence why I posted very little art for a few years.

If you've kept up on the Long Covid epidemic, you've probably heard about ME/CFS, and so you may already know that ME/CFS has no existing treatment or cure. All you can do is desperately try to treat your symptoms, struggling through the barrier of doctors completely unfamiliar with the illness, who are also often unwilling to educate themselves and persistent that you must actually have something they're already familiar with instead.

I've had very little success treating the pain despite trying everything the various neurologists I've seen over the years have thought to try. (if it's something with real medical evidence behind it, I can guarantee I've tried it and I've also been tested for like...every immune disorder.) I currently get 9 take-as-needed doses of a medication that lasts about 2 hours and ever so slightly decreases my pain most of the time (sometimes it doesn't work at all). And that's all I have to go on for 25 days. Again, my pain is unending. I never don't have a migraine. I'm just using my migraine meds to take the edge off when it gets particularly bad. I do have meds I take for symptoms like nausea and digestive issues that don't get rid of them, but do lessen them.

But the biggest thing was I started Low Dose Abilify for the cognitive fatigue in 2021. It actually worked and helped a little bit with physical fatigue as well. The difference was quickly outwardly apparent even at a very low dosage, not to mention inwardly apparent to myself. I've slowly titrated up, in between trying other medications for my symptoms, over the past couple years, and in January 2023 realized that my cognitive function had improved enough that I could regularly draw again and physically could sit up long enough to do so, even though I'm still forced to do so from my bed, which is why I now draw on an ipad. As far as I can tell, this is due to the combination of Abilify and the iron infusions I now get. I'm currently navigating what I am now capable of, and that means experimenting with making art regularly again. -Teaset

[drowninginredink]

Hi, it's the anon who headcanons the Chosen as higher needs autistic.

I just wanted to say that I'mactually thankful you educated me on your schizoprenic experience, because I didn't know any of that was even a thing! I'll take that with me going forward.

You're welcome! If you want proper schizo education, let's do it! Actually, a note first, because I'm going to be using the terms psychotic and schizophrenic a lot and you should know the difference. Psychosis is a symptom. It is basically just disconnect from reality, generally meaning delusions and often, but not always, hallucinations. Psychosis can happen because of pregnancy, medical conditions, other mental illnesses, or drugs (both legal/prescribed and illegal). Schizophrenia is chronic psychosis that cannot be attributed to any other cause. All schizophrenics are psychotic; not all psychotics are schizophrenic.

1. I know I already said it in the original post, but do not call 911 on someone in a mental health crisis. I will not share the details of what happens to psychotic people (and let's be clear here; it's almost always Black psychotic people) in police custody. And the "good" scenario is them ending up hospitalized, which really isn't much better. I work in nursing, but I will never, ever work in psychiatric nursing because the way psychotics get treated in psych hospitals? I could not see that every day. I could not be part of that system. And there's no way I'd have any leverage to change that system. Psychotics get forcibly medicated, restrained, treated like weirdos and pariahs by the other patients... And then thrown right back out. Why are there a bunch of homeless schizophrenics? Well obviously it's pretty damn impossible to hold a job when in active psychosis, but also, how are you supposed to keep getting your meds or get any lasting therapy when after you get out of the hospital, you're going right back to living on the streets?

2. If someone says stuff that seems delusional, do not fact check them (unless they explicitly ask you to). It will not work. It will just distress them and make them double down. The correct approach is to very slowly nudge them out of it until they realize for themselves what was a delusion, but that's not your job. That's for their therapist to do. Don't encourage them either, though. If you can change the subject, that's the best approach.

3. There's this image that all psychotics need to be medicated, because obviously therapy wouldn't work because they're completely irrational. Medication actually doesn't help 25% of schizophrenics, and therapy is generally way more effective. The problem with that being that you know who else thinks of psychosis as a "just throw drugs at it" issue? Lots and lots of psych professionals. And a whole bunch also just don't know what to do with us. Or they don't want to deal with us, because it's hard. As someone in the medical field Therapy is super useful, though. The standard approach is CBT for psychosis (which personally I had a terrible time with. DBT ended up being my magic bullet). Fun fact: my old psychiatrist is currently doing a study on controlling voice hearing yourself. Basically, you can stop hearing voices by telling them to shut up and fuck off. I'm unconventional as far as schizophrenia symptoms go, so I never really had much voice hearing, but I did for a brief period of time and that's how I got it to go away. Learning how to reality check yourself is the most effective way to deal with psychosis.

3. a. Back on meds, for me personally, anti psychotics did help with my dissociation, but did nothing for my hallucinations and delusions. I'm not on them anymore. We found that an ADHD med actually worked really well for my dissociation, interestingly enough. Anti psychotics also have awful side effects. Schizophrenia is not fun, but the worst thing I've ever experienced wasn't schizophrenia at all. It was akathisia, which is a side effect of anti psychotics. It's restlessness to the absolute maximum. You can't concentrate, you can't think, you can't sit still, you can't sleep. Your heart feels like it's burning a hole in your chest. It is hell.

4. Schizophrenia is actually neurodevelopmental. Our brains look different than other brains. I know personally, I have always had delusional thought processes. It's just that as a kid, I was fixating on, say, the fact that I just could not leave this party right now or that for some reason it was a huge deal that the teacher didn't call on me. So no one thought it was delusions. But now that I've been overtly delusional? The thought process is exactly the same. It's like you're wearing blinders. The world flattens out to 2D and you just can't see the truth. And then when you do realize it, you feel like an absolute idiot for letting it go on for so long. That's true now, and it was true when I was freaking out about dance recitals as a kid.

5. Let's talk about the absolute worst psychotic symptom you've never heard of: disorganized thinking. It's what it sounds like. It's like your brain and thoughts are a deck of cards that are constantly being shuffled. You lose your train of thought. You forget what it is you're doing. I know when my disorganized thinking was a lot worse (those ADHD meds have also helped a ton with that, thank God) I would just get trapped scrolling my phone because I couldn't keep a train of thought for long enough to decide to do something else. Or rather, I'd decide to do something, and then forget about it before I could, over and over. For people who aren't me, it will also manifest as disorganized speech, where you know what you're saying in your head but complete gibberish comes out of your mouth instead. A thing people do not talk about enough is how much schizophrenia absolutely destroys your ability to think. Between disorganized thinking and dissociation (and God, my dissociation is terrible... And this is with it medicated down to levels where I can actually function) sometimes my brain is just absolutely useless to me.

That's probably enough for now? I could keep going for hours, but I think that's a lot of really good information. Truly give me an inch and I'll run a mile