#felt like a failure and frustrated with myself for not being where i “should” be or where I planned to be

[wandering-premed]

url change: @frustrated-premed -> wandering-premed

[theflyindutchwoman]

I think they’ve made Lucy look so stupid. It annoys me so much cause she was my favorite. Isabel, Noah, Nyla have allllll told Lucy UC work destroys your personal life yet Lucy is running around like she’s the exception. She’s not. It drives me nuts.

I'm not sure if you just needed to vent or if you wanted me to answer… But I respectfully disagree. I get not liking this storyline and how frustrating it can be or even how out of character it might seem. That's perfectly fine. But I personally enjoy watching this journey. While I do believe that in the long term, UC is probably not going to be a good fit for her and the life that she desires, I love watching Lucy finding herself and trying to figure out a way to have the career AND life that she wants.

Let's get back to why Lucy became a cop in the first place. I joined the Academy on a whim. I knew that my parents would hate it. But I had no idea how much I would love it. Being a cop is the first thing I've ever been serious about. (1.04) I guess I've been adrift since college, trying on different hats and different personalities, and nothing's felt right, until -- until this. But I don't think the time spent trying to find myself was wasted. You know, everything I've done so far, the profound and the foolish, has prepared me to become a police officer so that I can protect those who need it the most and from those who would do them harm. (3.10)

By her own admission, she spent years trying to find her place, to find a job where she could feel fulfilled… So now that she found it, is it that hard to believe that she would do everything in her power to follow through? I know that she is talking about being a cop in general here and not UC. But at the moment, UC is what she wants to do… and honestly, she owes it to herself to try. Maybe she won't like it. Maybe she'll decide that it is not for her after all. But this is something she has to try for herself and decide for herself. Not because others have previously failed or because others told her to do something else - which is what her parents have been trying to do from the beginning by the way. Hearing other people's stories are not the same as living that experience yourself. Sometimes you need to learn first hand. There's nothing wrong with that. She may be 30 years old, but she is still at the beginning of her career. She is still finding herself and exploring all avenues. As she should.

"Isabel, Noah, Nyla have allllll told Lucy UC work destroys your personal life" All true. And yet, she is actively supported by people whose very own lives were destroyed by undercover work. Nyla has been mentoring her from the beginning. The same Nyla who teaches classes on how to learn from past mistakes. Who told Lucy on their first shift together to be better than her. And what about Tim? He obviously believes that she is different (his words), that this could have a better ending. Otherwise he wouldn't have bothered taking that leap of faith. And more than Lucy herself, he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. Despite his past and own issues, he has been nothing but supportive and encouraging since she graduated. Did he underestimate the toll it would take on him? Probably. Is he hiding his own feelings on the matter? Most definitely. But the fact remains that he still chooses to believe that they can make it work. It's no coincidence that the two main characters who had their personal lives so negatively impacted by UC work, are also the ones actively encouraging Lucy. I strongly believe that you are not bound by other people's mistakes and failures. Learn from it but don't stop doing something because other people failed. And that's what Lucy is trying to do.

"Yet Lucy is running around like she’s the exception." Is she, though? So far, ever since s4, she hasn't been in any rush to do undercover work. The only times she was pushing for a UC op, was when she volunteered Tim as a hitman and as Jake. Which is hilarious when you think about it. Since we mentioned Noah, here's what he said on the topic : she could have done more missions. Now, granted, unlike him, she is still a P2 so that might hinder her. It's entirely possible that she didn't get more opportunities. But when she got one, like in 5.07, she was still being cautious at first. And in 5.21, she didn't hesitate to call off the operation at the end. Not only that, but every time she meets someone who has done UC, she jumps on the occasion to ask them for their advices, for their different perspectives. And every time, those advices ended up with a 'maybe it can be different for you'. She is actually trying to learn from others so she can avoid making the same errors. That's not the act of someone who thinks she is better than everyone. Or who thinks she knows better. If anything, she seems to be taking her time : this has been her arc since s3. Even when she got accepted to the UC Academy, she went to see Nyla for advices. Sure, she was looking for some sort of absolution, but it's still telling that she went to her first.

"She’s not." How do we know she won't be the exception? Why do we immediately assume that she can't succeed when the premise of the show is about a 40+ years old man who decided to become a cop and succeeded? Everyone was telling Nolan he was stupid and naive too. And yet, here we are. So why Lucy couldn't be the exception as well? To show that there may be a way? In the end, it's a story. The writers can choose the ending they want.

Do I believe she would love the full undercover lifestyle? No. Not for long missions. I can't see her enjoying leaving her life and the people she loves behind… leaving herself behind. Not for a year. And not without taking its toll on her. But that doesn't mean I find her stupid for wanting to try out anyway. That's just my opinion though. Also, a career in undercover ops doesn't automatically mean going under. She could be a case officer. She could train new agents. She could do short(ish) missions. All of this could be a really good alternative for her.

Side note : I didn't touch on the logistics of long term undercover work on the show (or her being outed on a documentary) because, at the end of the day, no matter how complicated it could be, if the writers want her to do UC, they'll find a way. I just wanted to focus on Lucy's journey.

[bettsfic]

Hi Betts,

I recently listened to an interview with an author that said “when they decided to get really serious about writing and their dreams they made a ten year plan.” So me being the planner that I am, said maybe I should do it too, especially since this writer is pretty successful. Have I made a decent enough plan? No, because being real about your dreams and committing is scary af.

But I have developed this thinking that each story I have to work on has to be “publishable” and if I can’t immediately envision its success I need to push it away. For some people this is fine. For me, I’m pushing aside every idea and am constantly writing for an invisible audience. Which has its pros and cons.

I want to become efficient so that I can be a good author. One who meets deadlines and puts out work they are proud of. But I’m wondering if it’s even possible to try to work to be an author and still create work that is fun and true to you? If a decision isn’t meaningful I won’t include it in my outline. It feels like the only time writing can be fun is when I was young and had no clue about market and rules and just assumed my dreams would come true.

you know, what i keep finding over and over again is that i was right about a great many things before i had any idea what i was doing. i just didn't know why i was right, i had no context or evidence for my rightness. granted, i was arrogant, but arrogance isn't wrong; it's just uninformed. when you inform arrogance, it becomes confidence. you become informed by getting a lot of feedback on your work and giving feedback on work; having your work accepted once or twice and accepting someone else's work; having your work rejected hundreds of times and being the one to reject. maybe you've done all those things already, in which case you're firmly on your path and there's not much you have to do besides keep going.

i definitely relate to what you're saying, though. i would be lying if i said i wasn't just days ago in a phase of berating myself for my failures and wishing i could work harder and more efficiently. i've cultivated some confidence about my work, but there are some ways in which i'm too arrogant and others in which i'm too humble. i have a long way to go still in informing myself about my work and the process of making it.

you'll be in positions where you have to make creative concessions for the sake of publishing, but don't make them before you get anything on the page. listen to your own ideals and make those ideals happen in your work. a year ago, i finished a novel that was my favorite thing i'd ever made, and i was so proud of it, but i knew it wasn't publishable in the state it was in. even though i'd worked a year on it, it was still an early draft and bore the marks of an early draft, but i couldn't see that because i'd never taken any project further than that one. i'd never felt closer to a project or more intensely toward it. and when i was done, i went through six months grieving it, in a sense, because i knew i'd have to rewrite it. i had to kill the thing that it was in order for it to become what it needed to be. i came to accept that, and the next six months sat on the frustration of not knowing what direction to take it, but having the wisdom to know i couldn't rush it or force it.

and then the fix came to me all at once. the fix involves getting rid of many things that were once dear to me. not even darlings, but entire themes i felt were meaningful, that were the very things i want to share and explore in my work. i don't feel so bad about giving those things up now. what i take out will be put into something else eventually, and what i keep will stand out more starkly. the new parts i write will fit better and serve the story itself, even if it's no longer the story i originally intended to tell.

when you're drafting, your work is in a private conversation with yourself; it's about you even if it isn't. but it can't stay about you. eventually it has to stand on its own. and you might think, well why can't i just write something that stands on its own to begin with? but if you do that, writing is just work, it's business, and it may be more efficient but it's also less meaningful. there's no such thing as efficient creativity. it takes as long as it takes, and if you force yourself on a ten year timeline you might as well focus that energy on something more lucrative and within your control. there's so much about writing that's just chance and discovery and failure and faith.

so i think you should go back to assuming your dreams will come true and not thinking too much about anything except the work itself until you get to the point where you have to. and it will hurt. it may hurt more than anything hurt you've ever put yourself through. but trust you'll get to where you're going, even if it takes longer than you intended.

[bullet-clubs-bitch]

Black Widow

Zack Sabre Jr X gender neutral reader

Zack helps Y/n with a tricky submission move

Requested by: @yukioni02

Main Masterlist

I was growing beyond frustrated trying to figure out this new move. I was trying to add the black widow submission to my list of signature moves but for some reason, this move was harder than I thought. “Let’s go over it again,” I said to one of the young lions I was using as a practice dummy. I started off with a regular collar and elbow lock up, I then grabbed the head and went straight into a wrist lock. I then went to wrap one of my legs around the young lion's neck when they collapsed to the ground again. I realized that this was not my fault but it was the young lion that wasn’t being a good base. “Okay, that’s enough for today. Head back to the locker room” I told the young lion who was quick to exit the ring. “They are afraid of you, you do realize that right?” I could recognize that annoying voice anywhere. It was Zack Sabre Jr, he knew I had been struggling with this move and instead of helping he just laughed at my failure. I turned to meet the tall brit. “Good, they should know how to be a sturdy base,” I spat at him.”Still struggling with that move?” He asked me, “What do you think?” “I’ll take that as a yes. Ya know you should have asked me if you needed help. The Black Widow is almost identical to my Octopus submission” I knew what Zack was trying to do. He wanted to show off and prove he was a better wrestler than me. As much as I didn’t want his help, not being able to execute this move was killing me. “Fine” 

As much as the guy was a jerk he sure knew how to wrestle. He was a great teacher, I understood why the Dojo always asked him to teach seminars. Although I still think I do better seminars. Regardless Zack broke down the move step by step. He was surprisingly patient with me and didn’t mind my million questions. Finally, after what felt like forever I got the move. I had Zack right where I wanted him, I had my body wrapped around his, making him tap out. I let go of the submission and walked around the ring telling all the non-existent fans in the gym that I was indeed a better wrestler than Zack Sabre Jr. Just then, I felt him grab my wrist, spinning me around and pulling me chest to chest to him. After that I’m not sure what he did, all I know is that I ended up on the ground, Zack on top of me. I knew he was just messing around and this was nothing but two people wrestling but there was something in the air that made me feel like there might be something more here. The two of us were out of breath, we just lied there exhausted from our previous activities. Just then Zack said something I would never expect him to say. “Although you are a total bitch, I must say you look real pretty underneath me” I could feel myself blush at his comment. “You have no idea how much of a bitch I can be '' I told him as I flipped us over so I was now on top of him. “Why don’t you show me then”

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

Life update

Long story short(er)...a bit over a year ago my then-boss decided to bring a process that had been previously delegated to an external vendor internal, and I would be in charge of it. We knew that it would be a big challenge, but felt that it was possible. I didn't get a title change, but in effect this was a MASSIVE promotion, which I later convinced my subsequent boss to give me a significant raise for.

Then, my boss left the organization just as this new process was ramping up, and was replaced by someone who was honestly out of his depth in the position, for lack of any better option at the time. I repeatedly asked for assistance with decision-making, resources, and professional development regarding this process, but received very little assistance. Nevertheless, my newly-hired supervisee and I limped along the best we could with the knowledge and resources that we had. We were getting projects out the door, but we didn't have what we needed to assess how well we were doing and how to do it better.

A few months ago, my boss was working with some consultants on some tangentially-related things, and they were shocked to find out the extent of what I, as just one person, was in charge of. They suggested bringing someone else on board, and in fact, they knew just the person, who was currently looking for a new job. She became my boss about 2 months ago. She has extensive experience in this area and it's become clear just how in over our heads we were when we decided to bring the process in house with exactly 0 people with prior experience working on it. I kept asking both my previous boss and her what exactly my responsibilities vs. hers were, and never got a satisfactory answer. My previous boss kept telling me that I "could learn a lot from her" (completely true, but nevertheless I still needed to know what my job was so that I could learn from her while doing it) and then later that I should "be proactive" and not just wait around for someone to tell me what my job was (which, I'm pretty sure that repeatedly trying to have a conversation about it is, in fact, proactive? but ok). My current boss kept saying that she didn't know either, but it would get sorted out.

Well, it did. Sort of. Last week, she began to hint, and this week she said clearly (when I brought it up), that she does not believe my role as it currently exists is what she needs at this time. She is of the opinion that 90% of writing can be done with AI nowadays, with just a little human cleanup (I wish her luck getting AI to hone in on the very specific voices of certain picky higher-ups in the organization, which I have mastered, but ok), and what she really needs is someone with 6-7 years of experience with this work to run with strategy, project management, etc.

I, uh, clearly do not have that experience, through no fault of my own. So I have been given the following options:

a) Fully commit to the new position and go through 3-6 months of extremely intensive training to try to get me up to speed. I feel like this would be setting myself up for failure, as no matter how hard I work I cannot make up for years with mere months. It would also take a level of commitment to the position that I simply don't find myself having at this point. For various reasons, I'm just not interested in working for her at this point, and I can't see myself being motivated enough to follow through the way I would need to in order to have any chance at succeeding.

b) Try to find another position internally. This would be my preferred option, as I like where I work and what we do, but it requires someone having an opening that is in some way a good fit for me. A colleague has been putting out feelers for me, but I spoke to someone in HR yesterday and he didn't really have anything for me. This is IMMENSELY frustrating given that I was literally given an award for how valuable I am to the organization just months ago, I have always gotten positive performance reviews, and yet somehow it seems there is no way to use the very talents I was told were absolutely essential extremely recently. I feel like there should be someone I can go to and be like, "Hey, remember that big award you gave me for contributing so much? I would like to continue contributing so much. It is in the organization's best interest to not just let me slip away. Let's figure out where I can contribute." But I don't know who to talk to.

c) Leave and find a job externally. I have people who are happily willing to assist with networking and reference-giving on this, but the problem is that everyone's first question is, "What are you looking for?" and I don't have a good answer. I would probably like to stay in the nonprofit world, ideally the Jewish nonprofit world, but could see myself in a for-profit position if I felt like the work was making a positive difference in the world. It would be nice (and to my employer's benefit) if the position involved writing, given it's both my passion and my strength, but it's not a must. My main thing is that I want to feel like my employer is making a positive impact in the world and I want to feel like I myself am making a clear contribution to that positive impact. I didn't do well as an office manager because I felt too disconnected from the mission, but I did fine as an administrative assistant who was working with programmatic staff at the same organization (though such a position is now too low-level). I also don't want to take a salary cut (or at least not a major one), but many positions I'm seeing at my current salary or above are things I'm not qualified for.

So anyway, that's what's been going on and why things have been a bit quiet on this blog. I am oddly calm about it all, there's just been a lot to figure out. That can partially be explained by the fact that my husband starts working part time in less than 2 weeks, and then full time IY"H after he passes the boards in late July, so seemingly the worst case scenario here is we have a brief period of living off unemployment, his part time work, and savings before we get back to where we've been for a while now (his starting salary is a bit more than my current salary, so while we had been expecting our income would double soon, we at least wouldn't be worse off than we've been). But even so, I'm surprised that I'm not more upset.

[lunapwrites]

having a bit of a bad brainspace weekend.

i am intensely uncomfortable and unable to do things for myself that i normally could do and this is my not-so-friendly reminder that despite the sometimes crippling ADHD and the fact that my GI issues suck i am, in fact, mostly usually quite able-bodied. i am used to things i am not physically able to do being more in the realm of "touching my toes" due to my intense lack of flexibility or "lift my partner" due to him being 3x my size. I've historically been pretty strong and in good shape for someone that is allergic to the gym, so i was not anticipating adding things like "putting on socks" and "rescuing my sweet idiot dog from the couch he's forgotten how to get off of" to that list.

i made the mistake of asking my partner what it looked like i was struggling with rn because i'm not good at recognizing when i actually need to ask for help vs when i can just power through. this was a poor decision because this means that i received an itemized list of my recent failures. not phrased in a way to be hurtful, just expressing frustration because these were all things that i had previously handled myself with ease and now a) was suddenly not doing, or doing inconsistently, and b) was not indicating i needed help with. and he's not trying to step in on his own and make me feel micromanaged or smothered, because he knows i want to do for myself as much as possible (and also i'd probably bite his head off) and he's 100% correct. and he had to kind of sit me down and be like "you are pushing yourself too hard please stop" and i wanted to shake him and scream that i'm not, that i don't feel like i'm doing enough because i am just a pile of disappointments right now. massive laundry lists of things i need to do and can't because literally if i try it physically hurts me.

anyway i really want to write but the second i sit down i either get distracted with something else or fall asleep or sit there vibrating over the things i should be doing but can't so. there's that. [gazes longingly at several half-written WIP chapters wasting away in the corner] i know where they're all going. i just don't have the gas to get us there. and i hate that. especially because i have this intense fear of not having time for writing at all once Bean is here.

idk. everything sucks rn and i hate it here and i don't wish this on anyone. next person who tells me this is a wonderful miracle and that i should feel so blessed is getting a shoe thrown at them. "best thing you've ever done" fuck you. i know what i did and why, but i also knew it was going to suck ass at least 90% of the time. it was, i thought, an informed decision. i either underestimated the level of disability i would be experiencing or overestimated my ability to cope with it. like it's fine it's temporary i will get through it but jesus fucking christ this is rotten work. and not in a "not if it's you" or an "especially if it's you" sort of way, but more of a "despite" situation. i adore this kid so much already but i also want to be able to stand up for more than 5 consecutive minutes without feeling like i might die. i want to be able to have a conversation without immediately being out of breath. and even all of that i feel terrible venting about because in terms of symptoms i am getting off SO FUCKING EASY. it could have been way worse. and i'm bitching about it this hard. bitching about what???

anyway. so begins the final countdown. with me crying hysterically over a bag of fuckin pastries i left on the counter and feeling lower than i think i've felt since '09, which ain't a great feeling.

[deep breath.] everything will be fine. it just sucks right now. and also i really hate writing thank you cards.

[positivelyadhd]

ik its not ur usual positivity but THANK YOU so much for that post!!! I feel like "gifted kid burnout" really dominates the conversation and thats only one experience of many.

I was diagnosed with adhd in elementary school and was basically like. "the kid with problems" "lost cause" my entire life. one of my teachers even directly told my mom she should be ashamed of me lol. any successes were like-- "see what you just did? imagine how much more you would be capable of if you didn't have adhd." to the point where I don't even feel any sense of accomplishment for graduating college. it's just one more "failure" i avoided in other peoples eyes. (i dont personally think not graduating college is a failure at all btw, that is just Society's Message™)

this part is kinda tangential but from what i've seen a lot (ofc not all) of gifted kid burnout posts are like, if only i would have been diagnosed earlier all of this could be avoided. and maybe that's true - I understand where it's coming from at least, the frustration of feeling that something is wrong but not knowing what or having that "proof" that you're not just "lazy" etc. im not saying this isn't a valid wish or frustration but in my experience... hoooo boy.

personally being diagnosed with ADHD in the early 2000s, didn't meant you got support, it meant you were written off from the start, adults thought you had no future, you were seen as a "problem child" like it wasn't "oh you're not lazy you just have adhd!" it was "you have ADHD so you are built to be lazy and theres nothing you can do about it lol" so it didn't solve much. just created a different type of problem. im very happy to see things look to be changing though!!

I'm curious if other people had a similar experience and thank you so much for adding the 'diagnosed but not supported' part bc that is so real!!!

Absolutely this!!

My experience with diagnosis and lack of support was strange, but basically my primary (ages 4-11) school (I believe) suspected I had adhd/dyslexia and did offer some (very limited) support. But they also always told my parents they didn't think I had a learning difficulty when they asked because I was in extra programmes. I don't really think the support they did give me really helped all that much, and honestly, when I did get my diagnosis (around 12/13?) I'd spent so long thinking there was just something "wrong" with me that I feel like the lack of diagnosis was a lot more negatively impactful than not receiving support would've been.

My secondary school then managed to flip this and despite me getting my diagnosis part way through, nothing really changed either. Being told I had ADHD/Dyslexia changed me and my understanding of myself. I finally felt like things made sense and there was a reason i found things so difficult, it wasn't that there was something "wrong" with me but the system was not built for me. Although my diagnosis was early compared to some people, it felt late to me, and everything that can happen when you're undiagnosed had already set in.

I wished I'd been diagnosed earlier but honestly, I had a similar experience to you, and I don't think it would've done much. And even when I was finally diagnosed, my school also never really acknowledged my diagnosis and wouldn't put any of the accommodations that I needed in place (despite my diagnosis coming with a report which explained everything they should've been doing to support me and how they could've done it) I didn't get any accommodations for my neurodiversity until I was in uni, and I got my diagnosis in 2015 so at least for me, my experience wasn't that different to yours in the early 2000s.

When I tried to fight for the accommodations I should've been given, I was told that I would pass my exams, and so it didn't really matter, they didn't believe going through the hassle of giving me accommodations would help me (although the diagnosis report itself said otherwise.) I always felt similarly to you, I could scrape by but "imagine how much better you'd do without dyslexia/adhd" but I also had this weird "well because you're "gifted" you can get average grades, you don't need support!" message as well?

And yeah, just like you, I didn't really feel as accomplished as I should've done when I finished uni. I'm proud of myself for doing it but I do feel this weird pressure of knowing that if I didn't have adhd/dyslexia or managed it better, I would've done much better.

I apologise for rambling about myself but yeah thank you for this ask! I feel the same way, and I'm glad to hear I'm not alone in it as well.

I wish you the best dear anon <3

[shostakobitchh]

Chapter 58: change in pressure

The coin vibrated in his pocket, again. 

Where are you? 

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was barely six in the bloody morning — what could the brat have possibly gotten into? 

None of your business. Where are you?

Looking for you

He swore under his breath and quickened his pace. Where? 

Great Hall

Are you injured?

There was a beat of silence. Severus felt the blood rush into his ears. 

No

“I’m going to kill her,” he muttered under his breath. “Merlin help her, I’m going to throttle the girl myself.” 

He didn’t respond, keeping his singular focus on getting back up to the castle. She’d asked if when he’d still been in the Shack where he was, which he’d ignored, because the nosy little brat didn’t need to keep tabs on him. 

He hadn’t taken two footfalls inside the main hall when the girl materialized out of thin air, the Cloak pooling around her shoulders before she took it off completely. She looked like she’d just crawled out of bed, her hair flat on one side, sticking out partially on the other. Since Petunia hadn’t had a chance to hack off the girl’s hair in years it had finally grown to a healthy length, which unfortunately meant it was more to manage. 

She frowned up at him, something twitchy and anxious in her thin face. “Where have you been?” 

He stared at her disheveled state and took several, steadying breaths. “Your shoes are on the wrong feet.” 

Miss Evans scowled at him. “I’m serious.” 

“I believe I already answered that question,” Severus’ eyes narrowed. “Well? What is it, then?”

She started to say something, and then hesitated. Her eyes glanced down at her feet, self-consciously switching her shoes. The look on Severus’ face must’ve been enough to tell her that she had better start talking, but she went as red as her hair when she met his pointed gaze again. 

“You weren’t answering me,” Miss Evans bit her lip. “I got worried.” 

He stared at her, her face suddenly almost unreadable, but he knew her well enough by now. There was a storm brewing beneath the surface, one that had been set into motion the moment she hadn’t heard back and compiled a list of questions. 

"And that warranted you wandering around the castle, alone, before first light?" Severus' quirked an eyebrow down at her. 

"You know why,” she grimaced. "I don't sleep well."

It was not the confession he was expecting, nor wanting. Severus’ eyes narrowed further as he took in the tell-tale signs; the slight tremble in her hands, the dark circles under her eyes, the hollowness of her cheeks. His annoyance was momentarily replaced by a wave of something akin to concern — a feeling he quickly squashed.

"Insomnia isn't an excuse for your recklessness.” he snapped. 

"I know," she admitted quietly, her gaze shifting to the floor. "But you were gone."

She voiced it as if it explained everything, and it irked him, more than it should have, perhaps, but her words echoed in the hall's silence, a reminder of his failure to keep her safe from herself. A frustration throbbed in his veins as he met her gaze, dark eyes filled with an innocence rapidly being worn thin.

"And so what?" Severus bit back, the bitterness in his tone more pronounced than he'd intended. "What did you expect to find? My mauled body in some corner?"

“No,” Miss Evans said, nonplussed. “But I thought —” 

"No," Severus interrupted her, his voice steel in the chilled morning air. "No more thinking, and no more wandering the castle like a specter before dawn."

"But —” 

"No buts, Miss Evans." his eyes were icy as they bore into hers, yet she held his gaze unflinchingly. A spark ignited within them, a silent proclamation of defiance.

“It’s just — with Black,” the girl clenched her jaw, and to Severus’ horror, her eyes shimmered, like a mirage. “I got worried, okay?” 

The chill of the morning seemed to deepen, etching itself into the stone walls of the hall and creeping under Severus' robes. His gaze softened just a fraction, an almost imperceptible shift, but Miss Evans caught it. Her eyes still shone with unshed tears, her body poised on the edge of something desperate, something fierce.

“Black is not trying to murder me, Miss Evans.” He tried already — it failed spectacularly. 

“You canceled our Occlumency lesson,” she shook her head wildly, as though she were trying to convince herself, but she wiped at her nose. “And then I couldn’t sleep, and when I used the coin you didn’t answer. You’ve — you always answer.” 

Of course she would have taken that personally, but Severus hadn’t thought she’d pine for an explanation. He had spent every night of the full moon since Lupin had darkened their doorstep monitoring the Shack from afar. Dumbledore did similarly — he always assured Severus that he needn’t do so, but all it took was one wrong move, one slip of negligence — and that blasted girl always seemed to be where she shouldn’t when things began to unravel. It was beginning to give Severus a twitch. 

“And I would have eventually.” Severus leaned toward her, his tone softening only marginally. “I had an urgent matter to attend to.”

An obstinate light flickered in her eyes, but she didn’t argue. Not yet anyway. He could see it in the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin— she was gearing up for a fight. “But you could have —”

“Irrelevant,” he cut her off with a cool finality that echoed off the stone walls of the castle. “You are not to burden yourself with my wellbeing.” 

She swallowed hard, her eyes darting between his own as she searched for a glimpse of leniency that wasn’t there. 

“That’s bullshit.” Miss Evans said. 

Severus stared at her, something curling around his heart that warmed his chest before it immediately lashed at him. He could feel the heat whipping at his ribs, the roar of it distant in his ears. The word bullshit echoed through the hall, still balmy with the early morning magic that hadn't quite woken up yet. 

And then, before he could lay into her, she put on her Cloak, and left him there.

[celestiancrown]

I'm not gonna name any names, but I have this one friend who's essentially the perfect trans girl. Voice passes, face passes, pretty much everything. Always posting about how much she loves her life and being trans.

I know I'm such a miserable piece of shit for this, but seeing that is so fucking demoralizing because there's just no conceivable way that I could ever achieve that. I'm fundamentally limited by my body and my genetics and overall it's just fucking impossible to get where she is. I wish I could love myself and my transition as much as she seems to love hers, but that's just a pipe dream ultimately. I have to actively try to be normal around her, which to be honest is almost impossible, so I tend to avoid her as much as I can especially in VCs. She probably doesn't know that and I'm never going to tell her.

I know I'm the asshole here. I should be happy watching someone else succeed like this. I'm not a crab in a bucket and I hate people who are, but goddamn is it frustrating to be in a position like this. I have to work VERY hard to even have a 50% chance of passing, if that, and it seems like people around me do it so much better. And sure, I can ignore the binary, I should be ignoring the binary, my entire life is an act of protest and I've had to acknowledge that I'm hot in more... unconventional ways. That much is true. The binary is bullshit.

Unfortunately, I'm still fundamentally bound by it internally and can't follow my own advice. I would love to just be a cis-passing trans girl but that's impossible with my natural jaw and hairline and voice and height and build and everything. I've spent months and months of wasted life being dysphoric about these things that people tend to actually enjoy in me, despite me feeling disgusting because of them for such a long time. I've wasted years being insecure about things about my appearance I can't control.

And yet it still consumes me to this day. Even though I know without a shadow of a doubt the binary is bullshit, that I should be happy with my transition because every body is beautiful in its own way, that there's no wrong way to be trans, etc. My brain cannot let go of the binary and trying desperately to achieve the impossible. I have to face it eventually. I'm an ugly fuck according to cisheteronormative beauty standards.

I'm not traditionally feminine, like, at all, and I wasn't blessed with any features that can help cover that up. At all. It'd be pointless to pursue it, because failure is guaranteed. I look older than I am, and pretty much every stranger calls me "sir". It makes me feel like it's completely pointless to even continue transitioning.

I've always felt very alienated from the trans girls that I typically see online who put a lot of stock and effort into being as feminine as possible. I've pretty much never entertained the idea because I know it's just going to make me feel worse that I can't convincingly "be a girl" enough to average passers-by. Everyone else seems to have it so easy. Meanwhile, I'm standing over here in the corner with my weird-looking features and weird-looking boobs and weird fashion sense and not fitting any description.

It doesn't seem like anyone's ever going to notice they're not talking to a man when they talk to me. Try as I might, it rarely, if ever happens. I don't feel comfortable using the women's restroom because I don't pass. I'll get yelled at or kicked out or have the police called on me for being a pervert, or something. I managed to do it approximately once at a university when the bathroom was completely empty, and even then I was panicking so hard it took me three times as long to take a piss. There's been so many times I've contemplated dropping out of society entirely just so I don't have to worry about ever being seen again by anyone. Hell, my biggest life goal is to build a house in the middle of a large plot of land so I never have to be looked at by anyone, ever.

I'm still afraid people would just say I'm an asshole and a traitor to queer people for having these feelings. It's why I just try to keep a low profile. My existence feels like it won't ever bring anything to both queer communities and the world at large and I've almost never felt welcome anywhere I've been, digital or physical. I wish I could let go of the fear and just be Me. Ivy, the goth knifemaker. Ivy, the woman. Ivy, the force for good in the world.

Those chances were lost a long time ago, erased by forces I did not create nor did I control or participate in. It's just the status quo, and I'll never break that on my own.

[shslpunkartist99]

God I hate myself for feeling this but I can't really bring myself to feel much pity for Leo's situation. I felt a lot of empathy for Leroy and his siblings due to having grown up in a similar shitty situation, but Leo goes and sours it with this bit: "He still felt he should be the caretaker"

I had several siblings who left like that but couldn't because it's NOT an easy job. You NEED to have the right mental state to handle it AND the willpower to be able to continue doing it - which was something those sibs of mine never seemed to understand.

Ugh. Sorry. It's not that I don't understand where Leo is coming from. As hard as it might be to believe, he's the one I resonate heavily with. I see a lot of my younger teenage self with him, so you can understand why I feel so dismayed when he DOESN'T snap out of that stupid "he does this because he sees me as weak" mindset and realizes how stupid and ungrateful he was. You've said so yourself that Leroy admired him and Leona for how strong and dependable they appeared to be - so it SHOULD be blatantly clear that Leroy is doing this because he loves his family and wants to be just as strong and dependable as them.

Ok yes Leo wasn't exactly in the best mindset there so it's understandable that he'd somehow miss something that should be blatantly clear to him. Him tunnel visioning hard on himself probably didn't help matters either. BUT STILL THO IT JUST FELT LIKE A SLAP TO THE FACE. LEROY AND LEONA SACRIFICED SO MUCH, AND YET LEO JUST- UGH I JUST WANT TO GRAB HIM AND SHAKE HIM BECAUSE DUDE FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Anyhow, sorry for the rant. I hadn't intended for this to derail into a massive rant of sorts but holy heck that struck a personal nerve harder than I thought.

Despite what I've said here, I do really like Leo just as much as his siblings a lot- it's just that Leo makes me want to try to knock some sense into him. 😅

If I may ask, what will that personal recovery you mentioned would go like? Oh and uhm sorry to Leo there. I know he's not exactly in the best mindset to really erm care at the moment but still feel really bad there 😂😂😂😂

I definitely get you. It wasn't even something that was quiet or secretly thought of either; Leroy was very clingy to his siblings, both equally, and especially when Leona left. But Leo continued to struggle to take care of the other, so these thoughts got worse and worse.

Although frustrating, the dad being an abusive shithead was a huge part of this. I didn't go into specific detail, but he would hurt them just enough that there wouldn't be visible scars/bruises. Emotional and mental abuse was definitely high though, and since Leona was in her practices, it made Leo the biggest target, especially since Leo tried his best to make sure Leroy wasn't a target. Something like that isn't easily healed or forgotten. Leo tried to be stronger and unaffected as best he could, but every "failure" piled on more and more on him (even if it was just dropping a plate or misplacing his phone).

You definitely want to shake some sense into him, but having that trauma and depression so early on doesn't go away, even when you're finally in a better place physically. Your rant's fine! It's just a difficult situation

[cosmicwriterof21stcentury]

Forge the fire that burnt the city down,love, love, only love

Most of the time

I was on a verge of madness

An Incurable syndrome of some sorts

When I found myself crying often at little things

Or when I'd find myself being my own worst critic

I don't know how to let people go

Or let this frustration out

I never learnt how to manage my emotions

So it came out in the most Illogical ways

The lost motivation everytime I'd try to make something

All the crumpled papers in the corner of my room

They speak my truth.

And even more than that I found myself lying wide awake in bed in hopes that it would occur to someone how I really felt

Writing and drawing was only an attempt to reach out

I was mostly afraid of being lonely

And so it did, It draped me in its arms like a never leaving sickness

The one that made my bones crack under the weight of never being understood

I lie alot, specially when I say that I'm happy

And on days when I smile the widest , I feel ever so lonely

I don't know if you read this that you'll understand but I believe it's only human nature to seek validation, I haven't accomplished much in life except for a thing here and there ,not enough to make myself proud .

I am also the person who doesn't know what love tastes like except the crumbs of it that I learnt to lick off the tables,despite being told I've the most unique perspective of life,but won't a victim become the predator when it's been victimized his whole life?

I've been called many things - Narcissist, Irritable, Annoying,A Burden,good for nothing,a Failure and that's when I started to separate myself from the others. They couldn't see the facade of my sadness,My Clinging Younger Self that deafened me to demand justice? What justice? Where's the justice? I lived with her long enough to realise she isn't the one to be reasoned with,so I suffocated her and I killed her.

The ever so lovely faces,the enchanting smiles,the wicked souls and the lost sheeps.

I liked to think I'm better than them,better off them,better of them,better in a way that could only validate my Loneliness.

And when I look at other people's relationship with their mothers and fathers, I feel this Heinous Anger and possibly - Jealousy.

I don't hate my parents,oh no , I don't . That's a crime. It's a sin. Blood is thicker than water.

But sometimes I wish they would notice me,see me or just acknowledge my presence.

I want to feel vulnerable without thinking that it's an abomination to myself.

I've been cruel to my mother, my father's been cruel to my mother but sometimes I see her in my dreams, an image of her burning, she tells me to lick off her bones clean and love her,love her,love her,love her.

Eventually, I learnt it the hard way,but it's true,war isn't about the one's who won but the one who's left.

I often wish I could sew my hands to that of my friends hands , so we don't drift away,but in the loudest of rooms with their laughter I feel it echoing in the emptiness of the room.

I like classical music, the ones with instruments mostly,that of violins and cello and I daydream of being a hero which I can never be. A hero that saves everyone but themselves. A hero that can only be reborn with a purpose,which I do not have.

I don't remember anything from my childhood except a few memories which make me believe that I'm cracked in some places and my being is spilled out from those cracks ,but I only have two hands, so I let them go and Iook at my hands and I barely recognise who I am anymore.

I've lost my sense of self atleast a thousand times, if I could compare, I'm that drawer in the house with objects that don't belong there or maybe a crayon mixed up with other old crayons and I'm barely picked on, I suppose the colour I'm made of is likely the most unwanted of them all.

I get alot of remarks on who I am,what I was,what I would and what I should be.

I like to think that I'm not the first ,and I'll not be the last.

And when I look at my mother ,in my head,I hear a voice shouting do you see me? Do you love me? Have you ever loved me? Do you have this sadness inside you too? And in those moments I forget that ,my mother, she's been a daughter too, a wife,a Sophisticated,an elegant woman raised by a daughter like her while a daughter in her raised her own daughter.

I believe it's a system, a corrupted,a rigged one and on top of that ,A System that only rejects Emotions and is a home to the cultivation of starving each other of love and teaching each other the ways to make skin,hairs,hands and face soft. Hands , only if they weren't so cold to touch,they could've mistaken you were infact dead.

I don't know much about my childhood,let alone theirs but I like to think maybe I'll understand them when I get older,so I keep my mouth shut, I swallow my desires ,I burn my tongue and I speak, only the words that could please the ears of their lost gaze.

And I feel lonely,so lonely,with all these people around me, I feel suffocated.

They all call me their friend but they barely know how I feel, wouldn't it be as good as half dead?

But then I laugh it off, afraid they'll laugh at me. A roof on my head,food in mouth,a mouth sewn close and a lovely household. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it-

I miss my father alot but he barely calls me to even ask how I am , so I pretend that it doesn't really matter how does it feel ? Is it cold in the town? Doesn't it get lonely to be the shadow of a father who wasn't even there? A father gone by the afternoon, returned ,fed,sat and he left.

I like to think that they'll love me one day, but will i be the same?

I often reason with myself if I'm not worthy of love,so I get mean when I'm nervous,like a bad dog.

I learnt somewhere how you only recognize love when it's how you perceive love, but deep down I see the spilled empty pages of my diary in my room and I explode, famish, scatter and discard my heart on an origami crane.

I learnt a lot of things , mostly skills that required hand work in hopes that if they couldn't feel my pain , atleast they could see it? How do you glamorize someone's pain without vomitting blood? How to appreciate the death of a person who's never been born? How do you reason me with my ability to see beauty in twisted things when all you feed me is agony and pain?

So I dismiss it,my thoughts,my emotions, nowadays I like to sleep,so that when I cannot turn them off. I dissociate from the world.

It would only matter if you think it does,how can one love a broken,twisted thing with a lost limb and a burnt tongue? Unworthy of love,your foolish desires,eat the burning coal and love them back,love them back ,love them back,even if it hurts. It's supposed to hurt. It wouldn't get better, only you get resilient.

-the end-

-tamanna.

[lostbetweenthepagesofthesebooks]

"We learn from failure, not from success!" (Dracula, Stoker, p. 130)

Since I claim to love vampires so much, I figured I better do myself a favor and be able to tell people I've read Dracula. I should also probably do myself a favor and read Interview With a Vampire as well, especially since I didn't love Dracula. Maybe I'll find more enjoyment from the latter. I'd love to hear opinions from those that have read both.

Dracula

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Characters: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Plot: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Writing style: ⭐⭐⭐

I think my experience with Dracula was definitely worth it, even if it felt like a bit of a slog for me. I certainly don't regret reading the book, but I highly doubt I'll be reading it again if I'm being honest. I really wish I had received my Kindle at this point so I didn't have to own a physical copy of the book - more so because the apartment feels like it's bursting with books at the moment. I can't wait for a home so I can have a library already.

Stoker's overall writing in describing the setting, the dialogue, the world building, was very good in my opinion. I was pulled into that world. There were times I was tense from the suspension building, frustrated when Dracula thwarted the main characters on multiple occasions, and experienced the shared grief amongst the characters. My three stars more so comes from the diary aspect. I realized maybe halfway through that I was struggling with the book because of these aspect. For me, the diary entries aspect didn't feel quite enough. I feel like with third POV in books you get to experience the whole picture, like watching a movie on widescreen.

I will also add that I got frustrated with the multiple occasions were Dracula escapes the main characters. This vein is similar to Fevre Dream to me... I love a good suspension building, but I think there's a point where it gets too drawn out. There were plenty of chapters where you feel on the brink of success, and then it's gone, and all of the characters are super dramatic when this occurs; particularly Van Helsing, which I did find a bit entertaining.

The plot to overthrow Dracula is very fun though, even if it happens multiple times. It's interesting to watch the characters come together based on their strengths in order to carry out their plans. The characters themselves I felt were all fairly unique, which I really appreciated. I will say, though, I think the most interesting character was Renfield. I would definitely read more about him, if given the opportunity.

I would recommend reading Dracula, at least once. I feel like I can't go into too much more depth about the story and the characters without giving vital parts away, so this is definitely a shorter review. It also doesn't help that, like I said, I didn't love this book. Dracula is an important book to the horror genre, and really the fantasy genre, so I am glad I read it as a starter to horror and vampire books in general.

Read on beautiful people. 📖🤘

[mythologyfolklore]

Liù'ěr Míhóu joins the jttw gang, or: How to redeem an all-hearing celestial monkey with a superiority complex and a seriously bad attitude

(A/N: TW: mention of past physical harm, chronic pain and the Six-Eared Macaque being a dick)

Chapter Fourteen: Karmic pain

.

As happy as Tripitaka was, that his two monkey menaces-  disciples got along better now, it also came with a whole new nightmare.

Nothing catastrophic, just … stressful and kind of annoying.

For one, it turned out that Wùhuàn was just as mischievous as Wùkōng.

They also still bickered quite a lot to the point, where Tripitaka couldn't tell, if they were teasing each other or fighting.

For another thing, Wùhuàn still called him a slaphead.

“Will you ever stop calling me that?”, the monk asked in exasperation.

Wùhuàn shrugged: “Sure, when you stop being a slaphead. Besides, that bald head of yours is so slappable!” And emphasised his statement by clapping the top of Tripitaka's head like a drum, making the monk wince.

“Stop that, it hurts!”

“If you can stand seeing Wùkōng in pain, when you use that cursed headband on him, then you can handle a little sting on your skin. I know fully well, that if I had a thing like that, you would use it on me too. But I don't, so you'll have to suck it up and learn to educate through other means than torture. Also, it's just a few light claps on the head. Stop being a whiner.”

The Scripture Pilgrim gasped in offence: “Okay, first of all, I'm not a whiner! I'm complaining!”

“You're a whiner, Master”, Wùkōng dared to pipe up.

To add insult to injury, the other three disciples nodded - including Bái Lóng Mă.

Ouch.

Well, that hit the monk right in the pride he wished he didn't have.

He wasn't supposed to be offended by that. He was supposed to just shrug and smile it off, let it pearl off him like a lotus did with raindrops.

The bitter reminder of his own faults and failure to be a good example as a monk and teacher left a bad taste in his mouth, similar to what he felt, whenever Wùkōng talked about his home.

Tripitaka frowned at the thought, only to be startled back into reality by a gasp and a distressed Wùkōng falling onto his knees.

“I'm sorry, Master! Please forgive me!”, he pleaded. “Please don't say the mantra! I will be good, I swear! I will never say anything negative again! Please, please-”

Huh? But I wasn't angry at Pilgrim? I was … oh. Oh no.

Tripitaka wanted to crouch down and embrace his disciple, but that plan was thwarted by his aching back.

“Stand up, Pilgrim”, he spoke. “I'm not angry at you.”

Wùkōng looked up, blinking. “You … you're not? But … you looked like …”

“I'm not angry at you”, the monk repeated. “Nor will I recite the Tightening Mantra. I was frustrated with myself, nothing more. In fact, I'm the one, who should apologi-aaahhgh!”

“Master?!”

Tripitaka forced a smile. “Don't worry-ngh! It's just … my back …”

He was starting to fear, that Wùhuàn's strike had permanently damaged his spine, because it still incapacitated him as it had two months ago. Actually, the pain seemed to get worse!

Maybe it was karma for all the times he had hurt Wùkōng with the fillet.

“Master, shall I give you a massage?”, offered Zhū Wùnéng.

Enthusiastically, the monk accepted.

His third disciple helped him lie down and began to work his magic hands on him.

After what seemed about an hour, the Pig Demon helped his master put his robe back on, then carefully set him back on his feet.

“Better?”, Wùnéng inquired.

Tripitaka smiled, genuinely this time. “Much better, thank you.”

“You're welcome, Master, but we'll have to see a professional healer about this. I think you have a spinal injury. If we don't get you treatment, the pain will become chronic and you might lose the ability to walk.”

Tripitaka moaned despondently.

Yep. This was definitely karma.

[ankhisms]

rambling about stuff

i felt such a deep shame for having to drop out the first time i tried to go to college for many reasons, mainly the fact that i had been harrassed by my professors to the point of almost killing myself and feeling ashamed of not being strong enough to just suck it up and allow them to harrass and torment me, along with at the time thinking that would be my only chance at college because of having gotten a scholarship which was the only reason i was able to afford to go and feeling like i had wasted that money. i still often feel a bit of shame for dropping out but more recently ive heard more people within local theater circles talk about just how awful the teachers and the campus and overall environment at the college i tried to go to were and still are and its both validating and also frustrating. like i only just am recently finding out that im not the only theater student or ex theater student who has been harrassed and literally no exaggeration gaslit and publicly humiliated by this university theater department?? theres been more cases of this?? this has been going on for years and no one in any position of power has done anything about it even though its apparently known about, and all the students or ex students like me who were victims of this arent able to sue or get any kind of legal action because its our word against theirs and the nature of it all was that it was all in person and theres no paper trail to prove what happen, along with none of us having the money for legal action, and although in my case it did feel a little bit like sexual harrassment where i was told that i was so ugly and disgusting that i would never be cast in any roles for most of the other students/ex students it wasnt sexual harrassment it was just fucking verbal tormenting and humiliating but the university wouldnt do anything about it because it wasnt sexual assault/harrassment and because the teachers were tenured and had been there for years. its apparently just the whole culture of the place which makes me so mad. and of course i dont think the university would take it seriously if it WAS sexual assault/harrassment because its obvious they dont actually give a shit. anyway im not about to pursue legal action but i just am always so. man that was just another hugely traumatizing thing right after i had finished the worst most traumatizing time of my life (highschool) and i was so ashamed of the fact that i was traumatized from it. they had no right to do that to me or to anyone else but they got away with it and the ones that are still there will continue to get away with it. one thing i overheard was one of the teachers who specifically did a lot of the harrassment apparently "realized hes neurodivergent and that his evangelical upbrining wasnt good" like okay well im fucking neurodivergent and autistic and he traumatized me and made an 18 year old person feel so alone and isolated and like a failure that i tried to kill myself. but oh hes neurodivergent and was raised in a crazy christian environment so lets give him a pass on how he abused his power and harrassed and tormented his students! the man is in his fucking 50s hes not a child he should fucking know better. ok im fine its fine

[gotshadowbanned-feralfungii]

I dunno if anyone else had this experience growing up but as a kid with a mental disability, I often found that adults seemed to consider accommodations to be akin to training wheels. Like, if they just let me get used to the task I was struggling with while using accommodations, they could eventually take those accommodations away and I'd still be able to perform the task. I feel like it's redundant to say that was never how it played out. (Putting the rest under a cut bc this got longer than intended.)

For example, I always struggled to keep things organized, keep track of items, times, events, anything. That was one of my symptoms, though just about every adult treated it as a willful lack of care or deliberate disrespect for their time. At one point, my school hired an additional guidance counsellor to take time out of class with me and other students who struggled with this to help us keep track of things.

And the thing is: It worked. While he was helping me, I lost things less, my papers and textbooks and bag were more organized than they'd ever been in my life, and I was doing really well with the accommodation provided. Having someone who would check in with me daily about the things my brain just couldn't hold onto made a world of difference, and it was such a relief. I wasn't being yelled at about it anymore, I wasn't losing things, and I wasn’t getting frustrated with myself.

The problem is, the school and my parents didn't consider this to be a result of accommodations making things doable for me. They saw it as the accommodations "teaching" me how to do all this myself, despite the fact that the way my brain was structured meant I literally could not achieve these successes to such a degree by myself no matter how well I understood the strategies. So, they took the accommodation away once they saw the improvements, figuring that meant I didn't need them anymore.

I backslid right back to square one. Only worse, because now I knew what it was like to be able to keep track of things better, and I was even more frustrated than before. I kept buying into what the adults were telling me, that if I did it with the counsellors help then that proved I should be able to do it on my own if I just tried hard enough. So, I tried, and tried, and tried, and I failed every fucking time. Every time.

And the yelling started again, the same lectures as before, only now with an added layer. "You were doing so well when he was helping you, and now you've let yourself fall right back into the same bad habits! You need to be more mindful! You'll never amount to anything like this, you'll never be able to function properly in the real world!" And yeah, functioning in real world would be just about impossible for me... without accommodations, and medication.

I still do really, really well when I have the accommodations and medication I need. I still end up back where I started when I don’t have those accommodations or my meds. Now, as an adult, I have more control over those accommodations, but as a kid they were entirely under someone else's control, and they just took them away when they personally felt I no longer needed them without ever talking to me and asking me how I felt about it. My perspective was never once considered.

Like I said, I don't know if this is a common experience for people who grew up with disabilities that were severe enough to impact their life but could be chalked up by the adults around them as just a failure to put in effort. I hope not, since I know how bad it fucked me up. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I spent almost two decades after that experience hating myself, furious with myself, demanding of myself why I couldn't just do better like everyone insisted I could. I felt like a failure, and instead of coming to terms with the limitations of my disability and learning to work around them, I started to consider my disability to be a personal failing, something I had done to myself and could stop at any time if I just tried hard enough.

I even started insisting I didn't have ADHD, even when my doctor insisted I matched up with way too many symptoms for it to be a coincidence. I bought into the narrative I'd been sold, that the fact I was able to perform certain tasks with help meant I didn't really struggle with ADHD, no, it meant that I was lazy. I used other reasons to back up this idea, I had bad side effects to the very first medication I was tried on and convinced myself it was proof that my teachers and parents had been right and it wasn't really ADHD, just a personal flaw. The logic was absolute nonsense, but I was young and knew nothing about how mental conditions and medications work.

I allowed myself to be medicated for depression and anxiety, because my symptoms there were so drastic that none of the adults around me could claim I didn't need help. I was unwell in a way that was obvious and easy to see and easy to recognize as unwell. Not to mention, I was old enough by the time those two diagnoses came along that I no longer took to heart everything people around me said. Yes, it still had a negative impact on me if people acted like I could just cheer up or calm down, but there's a difference between insecurities developed as a teen and deep-seated seeds planted as a child.

So, I kept trying to white-knuckle my way out of ADHD until this year. I am currently 26. I spent almost two decades denying treatment and insisting I could overcome my issues by sheer force of will. I struggled to hold down jobs, I barely managed to get a college degree, relationships were negatively impacted, my other conditions were made worse by it, and the whole while I held onto the belief that it was all my own fault to begin with and so I shouldn't take resources from people who "actually" struggle with ADHD.

I don't know how much longer I would've kept that up, if my therapist hadn't convinced me to make an appointment with a specialist. Now, I'm on a different medication than the one I'd tried as a kid, and it makes a world of difference. Now, I know what sort of accommodations I need to be able to function as closely to "normal" as I can manage. Now, I have systems to help me with my memory, and while I'm still disorganized my medication makes it easier to keep things in order. All of these things that made my life hell every single day for almost twenty years, and it was all entirely treatable.

I kind of got off track here but yeah, I don't think children's struggles are taken seriously enough, accommodations shouldn't be treated like training wheels that you can just pull out from under someone when you decide they probably don't need it, and both of those issues can cause significant harm for huge chunks of a person's life. Almost 20 years ago I did well with help, had the help taken away, and was told it was my fault that I started doing poorly again without help. I trusted the adults lecturing me and for almost 20 years, I punished and scolded myself for symptoms instead of treating them, because punishment and scolding was what I had been repeatedly told would "fix" me.

Listen to kids when they say something is beyond them, as even if it isn't beyond them, the fact that they feel like that is important and could alert you to a deeper cause of their struggles. If you want to alter or take away the accommodations a child is receiving, maybe actually discuss it with them first no matter how convinced you are that they don't need it. You aren't them, and no matter how hard you try, you won't always know best. And if you had experiences like this as a kid, I'm sorry. If you're like me and you internalized the idea that you don’t need help but you just need to stop being a fuckup... Please know, you aren't a fuckup. You aren't just lazy. You deserved help then, and you deserve help now. I hope you can eventually access the sort of assistance that was kept from you.

[liskantope]

It's happened again on Freddie's blog. *sigh*

And it's annoying, because on the one hand, I completely sympathize with FdB's frustration that commenters (albeit a very small handful of commenters, who are presumably not earlier offenders because those would already have been banned?) continue to outright disobey his very clear rules. On someone else's blog, you should respect what the host wants the vibe to be in their comments sections even if you feel the host's preferences are unreasonable, instead of pretending you didn't understand them the first five times he told you, ya know?

And on the other hand, it's like, Freddie, did you really think nobody in your audience would reach as far as connecting (at least in their minds) a post about transracial identities to the topic of transgender identities? I suppose that you're going to say yet again that part of your audience has some bizarre pathological fixation with trans rights stuff because they have a tendency to bring up our culture war battleground du jour every time you rant about people constructing an identity around race or constructing their identity around a (real or perceived) mental illness, because you just can't imagine why criticizing a fixation on an internally felt identity would possibly bring the whole trans issue to people's minds (gee, these people would think a convo about tax rates is an excuse to bring up trans stuff, they're so obsessed!)?

This time we did get one brief, very dismissive paragraph from FdB on why racial identity is significantly different from gender identity, which I think I could have argued better from the perspective of there being scientific evidence for an internally-felt gender region of the brain which doesn't have an analog for race. (Of course, it would bring up thorny questions of how many of today's younger newly-self-identified trans people actually have that sort of thing going on in their brains.) I myself a few years back wrote down my off-the-cuff thoughts contrasting being an otherkin with transness in favor of transness being an entirely valid thing. I still don't really see why FdB couldn't write a (much more polished) post of this sort (disabling the comments section for it, of course) to address the issue, instead of just being instantly dismissive of anyone who disagrees with him on it.

Note by the way how FdB straight-up says that the only people who don't get the obvious difference between the experiences of race identity and gender identity are the ones with a transphobic agenda. It doesn't feel in keeping with his perspective as a contrarian whose own political agenda is constantly mischaracterized.

I will say that this behavior is tipping me further in favor of the more charitable interpretation of FdB where he is just being honest and his intentions are purely in support of the LGBTQ community against comments he finds offensive, and that he genuinely can't understand how some people could be so dumb/obsessed as to connect any of his criticisms of some failure modes in self-identity to the trans thing.

By the way, on the topic of having an "obsession" with the debate over trans rights, again, do you really think the trans-activist part of the Left doesn't try to relate everything it can to trans rights? I recently ran into this article, which has some possibly quite valid points about LGBTQ people having worse housing and health care access and therefore being more vulnerable to climate change, but in my opinion really tenuous and reaching with some arguments like how there are higher rates of smoking in the LGBTQ community so they are affected worse by air pollution, therefore pollution is an LGBTQ-rights issue. I'm not saying that the Right doesn't also try to make as much as possible about trans issues as well, because I'm sure nowadays it absolutely does, I'm just not exposed to nearly as much fully right-wing content. But I am saying that both sides reach pretty far to relate everything to trans rights, because that's what both sides in a culture war do with the most hot-button culture war topic, and that they're reaching much farther than a bunch of FdB-readers who bring it up mainly in response to blog posts about self-identity.

So, yeah. I'm really going to try to shut up about this now, because it's clearly a situation that isn't going anywhere new or productive anytime soon.