#like. can I cope without my brain recognizing the coping mechanism as such

[sickgraymeat]

Sucks that you can’t be selective about emotional detachment/numbness like I’m trying to disengage with LIFE I still wanna feel things about cartoons lmao

[leebrontide]

Every single time I see a take that amounts to "if you write about X happening, or like fiction where X happens, you like X" I'm reminded of this one time I was at a casual friends house as a young kid. We were in her room, pretending to "be orphans" escaping from an evil orphanage and having to take care of each other and fend for ourselves. It was all very Little Orphan Annie/All Dogs Go to Heaven and based on the 80s pop media.

And this girl's mom comes in, hears what we're playing and gets all MAD and UPSET. She says that if we play act something, it's because we want it to happen. So her daughter must WANT HER TO DIE.

First off lady, we were 6 year year olds, so take it down several notches. We barely had a concept of mortality for fucks sake. She made us feel so guilty and ashamed, because she was taking our game personally.

Now I have a 5 year old. And sometimes she looks at me and says "pretend you're dead, and I have to -" Whatever it is. Some adult task she's assigned herself.

And it's just so transparently obvious that she's practicing the idea of having to do things on her own. Which is exactly what 5 year olds are supposed to do. I actually find it very flattering that the only way she can envision me not being available to help her is to be literally deceased. Otherwise, obviously, she wouldn't have to do scary hard things alone.

It's a natural coping mechanism. She's self-soothing about what would happen if I wasn't there by play-acting independence in a perfectly safe environment. She's also practicing skills she needs, and making up excuses for practicing them on her own, without taking on the responsibility of being able to do them by herself all the time yet.

Humans mentally rehearse bad this in their brains all the time. We can do that by ruminating- going over worries over and over again, which tends to lead to anxiety and helplessness and depression. Or we can do it with a sense of play- by recognizing that the fiction is fiction and we can dip our toe into these experiences and expose ourselves to bad things without actually being injured.

My daughter does not want me dead. And I don't want bad things to happen in real life. But fiction and pretend help me face the horrors of the world and think about them without collapsing or messing myself up mentally.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I was talking to a client today about "how to identify masking" as part of the process of learning how to shift masking from a reflexive coping strategy to a voluntary and conscious one and I feel like it led to a really important shift in framework FOR ME about masking and social distress.

Paraphrasing, the ideas we came to are as follows:

One of the reasons masking can be so difficult to recognize is because, essentially, masking is the act of performing "yourself" as a mirror for the other person you are interacting with. It's this idea of "I will micro-manage my own mood, affect, behavior, mannerisms, and environment in order to reflect back to you whatever version of "self" you need from me because if I don't there will be consequences". So because masking is essentially performing "mirroring" as selfhood by amplifying or minimizing aspects of yourself based on what you think the other person wants to see in you, it varies significantly from one context to another. The major commonality is that it takes up an INCREDIBLE amount of energy, mental and emotional resources, cognitive processing power, etc. So you don't identify masking by specific behaviors so much as by the feeling of "having a significant amount of your mental/emotional resources be occupied by the act of social interaction" to the point that it doesn't leave enough left-over for other cognitive tasks, or leaves you feeling exhausted and worn out, or basically by the impact that masking has on you during and after.

In this framework, part of why we get so anxious about new or unfamiliar people or situations is because we don't know how to mask in that context yet, and so until we get there and figure it out, we're basically just terrified of what could go wrong since we don't know what we're walking into.*

*This is the underlying framework of anticipatory and obsessive anxiety as well. Anticipatory and obsessive anxiety functions as the mechanism by which we conduct both predictive reasoning-basd advance planning and review/self-correctionof our mental predictive model.

Autistic aversion to uncertainty has a lot to do with our need to be able to use predictive reasoning-based advance planning to cope with "social deficits" aka how much harder it is for us to interpret subtextual/nonverbal cues, learn/meet social expectations, and work through/around disordered sensory processing. That predictive reasoning requires us to be familiar, in advance, with the stable constant factors that influence decision making in social contexts. If we aren't familiar with the constant variables than we can't plan, if we can't plan than we are more likely to make noticeable social mis-steps, and if we take notable social mis-steps there are consequences. It becomes necessary for us to be hypervigilent to observable patterns in other people's behavior in order to try to reverse engineer the social interaction playbook on the fly. That ends up making us more likely to assume personal responsibility for predicting and managing the emotional regulatory needs of people around us at all costs, replicating the behavioral/cognitive impacts of chronic traumatic stress due to the activation of our sympathetic nervous system from chronic hypervigilence.

Essentially, masking is a cognitive defense mechanism to severe and/or persistant traumatic interpersonal stressors. As the neurological impacts of chronic traumatic stress heal, we mask less frequently. But in order to heal from chronic traumatic stress, the human brain requires a safe environment that does not trigger a retraumatization episode or replicate feelings of helplessness/fear for safety. In other words, reducing/terminating masking safely requires us as autistic people to have consistent access to social environments in which we are able to utilize autistic interpersonal boundaries without fear of consequence or chonically unmet need. This requires the people around us to be able to respect not only autistic interpersonal boundaries, but also autistic self-expression/advocacy modalities and mediums.

I feel like a lot of the pieces of this framework have been rattling around in my head for a while but the flavor of words hit just right today and all the connections snapped into place.

Anyway, I'm still sort of sorting through the clinical implications of this framework but I think it's a direction I want to keep exploring for sure.

[cringefailroboguy]

Okay narc abuse this narc abuse that

How bout y'all share your favorite ways to cope with a crash

Here are some of mine

1. I join close knit communities involving my interest/s and am active in them frequently. After a while, the people start recognizing me and when I share something I'm proud of (even if I made it pre-crash) some people will notice and comment on it, which boosts my confidence a little! My art means a lot to me and I tie most of my self worth on it, so people complimenting my art by extension compliment me too. You don't have to be an artist for this, just doing anything you're good at and you love and having people notice this might help you feel a bit better

2. When I'm having a somewhat minor crash (or right after a major crash when I've ridden it out and am feeling a bit better) I go on sprees where I do good stuff for people, I give money to the homeless, I buy gifts for my family members, I compliment a stranger etc, people usually notice this and thank me for it which also helps me feel a bit better about myself (note - I do these things one and off without crashes, but I usually binge-do-good when I'm feeling especially low hahaha) (dunno how much this one works about actually upping your ego, but I personally tie worth as a concept to being a good person, so actively and provably being a good person immediately helps me with perceiving my worth as a human being)

3. Tumblr drafts 😭😭😭😭😭 I've noticed that journaling and venting in my notes doesn't help because nobody sees it and the lack of attention makes me get even worse, and venting to people drives them away from me and makes me uncomfortable so I've avoided venting and I bottle up my emotions a lot which usually actually drives me into a crash in the first place. So I started writing and formatting my vents as actual tumblr posts that I'm totally planning to post, and I tag them and everything, but then I save them as drafts. This way, for some reason, my brain sees this as "yes. You will now post about what's bothering you and many people will see this and like and reblog this!!! You'll be so noticed and cool and get so much attention!!!" Which makes me feel better in the moment, except as I get better I forget about the drafted post so I also simultaneously save my privacy while I'm at it looollll

I mean arguably, all of these are for some mild-er crashes and usually for some bigger ones I don't really have a coping mechanism so I just lie in my bed, shake and feel cold for weeks until I finally get the energy to get up, but honestly even if I can make it a little bit easier for me, I will

Anyway feel free to share your favorite coping methods too!

[loversj0y]

bad day?

cc!wilbur soot x gn! reader

TWs: dissociation, explicit implications of self harm, blood

word count: 2.1k

note: please, please, please, heed the trigger warnings. i have been going through a rough time and i wrote this fic as a coping mechanism, so please be aware of what you are going into. it's not my best work but it brought me some comfort to write it, so i hope it may bring you some comfort to read it

There was blood on your hands. 

Why was there blood on your hands?

You looked up in the mirror. It took a few minutes to recognize where you were. You didn’t recognize yourself, but you knew you were looking at yourself. 

You were standing at your sink. There was blood on your hand, dripping into the sink. Fuck. 

You were slowly coming to, turning on the water from the sink and gently running your wrist until the tap. You held in a whimper, hissing at the feeling. As irritating as it was, the cool water and the sting helped ground you more and more into yourself. Once you washed the majority of the blood off your hands and arm, you sighed, slowly taking a seat on the bathroom floor. You couldn’t stand staring at the stranger in the mirror anymore. Opening up the cabinet, you pulled out the first aid kit, nestled at the back behind Wilbur’s spare hair products. The first aid kit collected dust most days now. It almost felt like it was mocking you as you opened it up, pulling out some supplies.

You made quick work out of cleaning. You didn’t want to have to stay here staring at your arm for any longer than you had to, and you’d rather not still be here on the floor when Wilbur got back from filming. After you were properly bandaged, you pulled a hoodie on and just collapsed straight into bed. You had no conscious idea of what time it was, but you felt exhausted regardless. 

You stared at your bandage for a few moments, tracing the line of where the gauze met your skin. Wilbur taught you how to do it properly. Your recovery was no secret to him, and he had always been incredibly supportive. However, the first time he had seen the way you bandage your arm, he looked almost appalled and immediately pulled out the first aid kit again. 

“Darling,” he was chuckling lightly, as if the issue was something far lighter than it was, and it made you feel more at ease as he started undoing the bandage you had done. “I’m going to teach you how to do this properly, alright? I don’t want you getting an infection on me.”

“And how do you know how to do it properly?” You asked, eyebrow raised. 

He hummed, pulling out some antiseptic cream and gauze. “You don’t spend as much time in and out of hospitals for no reason without picking up small things. I went in once because I had a pain in my side that my brain convinced me was my liver failing.” He started rubbing the cream onto your arm so delicately as he continued, “While they went to do tests, I was sharing a hospital room with this guy who had gotten this bad infection on a scrape on his leg. They were training some new nurses, so they started going over appropriate techniques for wrapping cuts and scrapes.”

“And you listened?” 

He looked up at you, pausing his hands to just smile fondly at you and chuckle, “of course I did. As convinced I was that my liver was failing, I also just thought to myself: well, if I survive this, there’s nothing saying the next time I get scraped up won’t be my end. So may as well learn how to prevent it and buy myself some time to say goodbyes.” 

You snorted softly, “That’s pretty dark.” 

“Yeah, I wasn’t doing the best at the time,” he chuckled lightly, “but it was for the better. Because now, I can make sure that doesn’t happen to you.” 

You smiled gently at him, leaning forward to kiss him gently. “Thank you, Wilbur.” 

“Of course, darling. Anything.” He smiled, turning his attention back down to finish wrapping your arm. 

Once he finished, he turned your hand over, kissing the top of the bandages. 

“If you’re trying to be cliché, that’s the wrong side,” you hummed. 

“Oh please, I saw your face when I was wrapping you, I know how tender your arm is right now. The day one of my kisses hurts you will be the day I die.”

You flushed softly, taking his hand and squeezing it gently, “Dramatic much?”

“For you, darling? Always.” 

You thought about that night as you pulled your sleeve back down to cover the bandage. No matter how much you knew Wilbur wouldn’t judge you for it, you still felt a shame bubbling in the back of your chest. Instead of pondering it or letting it consume you, you let the exhaustion take over you instead. 

You woke up to the feeling of arms wrapping around you, shifting and sighing. 

“Hi, darling,” Wilbur spoke softly as you turned to face him, settling into his arms, “Bad day?” 

You nodded softly, sighing and looking up at him. He had a gentle smile on his face. Never judgemental, always kind, even if he was finding you in bed after a few days. Even if your room was a mess and your hair was oily and you couldn’t stop crying. He always met you with nothing but kindness. 

He gently brushed some hair out of your face, gently kissing your forehead. He spoke gently, “I saw the first aid kit on the bathroom floor.” He kept the light smile on his face, as if he was asking you about the weather, not your own mental doom. “Do you want to talk about it? Or just lay here for a bit.” 

You leaned forward, resting your head on his chest. When you spoke, your voice was a bit jagged, “Lay here first. Talk after.” 

He nodded, pulling you into him closer. You pressed your head onto him, relaxing slowly. You focused on the sound of his heartbeat, closing your eyes again. He hummed softly. You could spend the next day just lying here before you spoke again, and he would never complain. He’d take as much time as you needed. 

You didn’t know how much time passed before you opened your eyes again. When you did, you watched Wilbur’s face for a moment. Contently, he continued to hum, eyes closed as one hand absentmindedly traced figures into your back. You took a deep breath before speaking softly. 

“I don’t really know what happened,” you spoke. His eyes opened slowly, his gaze full of nothing but love and acceptance. He nodded a bit, waiting for you to go on. 

It took you a while to continue, but he didn’t push, just waited patiently. 

“It felt like a glitch or something. One second I was staring at myself in the mirror and the next I was staring at blood dripping into the sink. I don’t even remember doing it.” 

He nodded, keeping you close, “Did something trigger you?” 

You frowned a bit, “I- I don’t know. I don’t think so, I just…” You trailed off, unsure of how to put it into words. 

“That’s okay. To not know,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead, “walk me through your day. I’ll try and see something you don’t.”

You nodded, taking a deep breath. “Alright, uh. I woke up pretty late. You’d been gone for a while already, the bed was cold.”

“How were you feeling when you woke up?” He asked softly. 

“Uh,” you thought, “hard to say. I- I guess numb? Didn’t particularly sway one way or the other.”

He nodded, “Alright, continue.”

You nodded, “I went to the kitchen first. Didn’t change out of my pajamas, but I went and I got water. Then I made some breakfast, something light, but I don’t remember what.” You took a deep breath, thinking back and sighing, “I- I remember feeling gross.”

“Gross?”

“Like physically? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d showered, so I just felt gross. So I went to take a shower. I- I felt… rough. Couldn’t look at myself without feeling gross, no matter how much I’d cleaned myself. At one point, I was just staring at the floor completely… blank. There were no thoughts really going through my head, it just felt like I couldn’t get out of my head.”

“What got you out of it?” He asked gently. 

“My phone went off. I- I never actually checked it, but the sound startled me enough to pull me out of it. I got out, got dressed and everything. And I stopped in front of the mirror to put product in my hair, but when I started looking at myself, it just… cut out from there.” You finished, frowning and focusing your eyes on the seam of his sweater. 

He nodded softly, “Can I see the bandage?”

You shifted your arm, lifting the hoodie sleeve to show him. “I used your method, don’t worry.”

He inspected it carefully, nodding. “Should probably change them, it’s been a while. Are you alright with me doing it, or would you rather do it yourself?”

“You can do it,” you spoke softly. 

He nodded, standing briefly to grab the first aid kit. “How here are you?”

You sighed, thinking. “About 95%. Still not fully here, but I’m mostly all back to myself.”

He nodded, sitting back on the bed next to you. He carefully started undoing your bandages, humming again to himself as he finished getting them off. 

“This will sting,” he warned, waiting for your nod before gently starting to wipe the wounds with an alcohol wipe to disinfect them. You hissed softly, and he gently shushed you. 

“I know, darling, it’s alright. I’m almost done, you’re doing great,” he spoke softly, distracting you until he’d finished cleaning them. 

“There you are, the hard part is over, love,” he spoke softly, grabbing the antiseptic cream and gauze, starting the process of dressing your wounds once more. 

“Scale of one to ten, how bad do you think they are?” He asked softly.

“Physically? They’re not that bad, probably a six. Mentally, I’m not sure. Probably a nine.” 

“A nine?” He asked softly, focused on wrapping the gauze over your wrist but still listening intently. 

“It’s just another reminder that I’m not doing good. That I’m never going to be able to fully heal. I know healing is not linear, but it’s still frustrating to have a physical reminder of it.” 

He nodded softly, “I can understand that. I think you may just be focusing on the wrong thing.”

You tilted your head, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I think when this happens, you focus on the whole thing about breaking the amount of time you’ve been clean. Am I right?”

You nodded, so he continued. 

“I think instead of focusing on the streak being broken, we should focus on how good it is that you went as long as you did. You’re treating an addiction like a competition instead of an addiction. You can’t just stop all at once, especially when you were used to doing this every day. So instead of being upset that you didn’t go as many days as you wanted or that you have to start over, focus on the fact that you went as long as you did without doing it. Because it’s a big thing, and a good thing. It deserves its praise.” 

He finished wrapping your wrist, and he placed a gentle kiss to your palm. 

You sat up, slowly leaning forward and resting your head against his shoulder. 

“Thank you,” you whispered softly. 

He wrapped his arms around you gently, whispering back, “of course, darling.” 

You kissed his shoulder lightly, and he rubbed your back gently. 

He waited calmly for you to pull away before pulling you into a gentle kiss. He placed a hand on your cheek, gently rubbing his thumb on your cheek. 

You kissed him back gently before resting your face into his hand. 

“You said your phone going off helped break you out of it when you were in the shower, yeah?”

You nodded softly, looking up at him. 

He used his other hand to gently brush your hair from your face, “alright. Moving forward, when I’m not home or not with you, I’ll text you at least once at the start of every hour. And unless I know you’re busy, if you don’t respond within… thirty minutes, I’ll call you. Does that sound good?” 

You nodded softly, “That sounds good. Maybe within twenty instead of thirty though.” 

He nodded, “alright. We can experiment with it or change it up occasionally to see what works best. Good game plan?”

“Good game plan,” you nodded softly. 

He smiled, pulling you in for another gentle kiss. 

“Good. Now, choose your comfort film of choice, alright? I’ll order your favourite in too, God knows I won’t be cooking tonight.”

[uchihaharlot]

I have a question, what do you think of Obito/Tobi?

Hello nonny 😌🥹

You are my first ask on this blog 🥳🎉 And it’s of my beloved Obito/Tobi. 😍 Obito forever will be a gentle giant in my eyes with a side of fucking you stupid. Save that for another day. I will distinguish between the two personalities best I can. I feel like, aside from the mask hiding his identity, it was easier for him to be who he wanted to be in Tobi without the pressure.

Some sfw with mild suggestive themes Obito/Tobi headcanons:

Obito:

• Despite his role in bringing near world domination, he’s a lover not a fighter. After all the whole reason he went awol was because of Rin and Madara’s influence.

• Very easily manipulated. ☺️😅 Sorry Obito, he just is so gullible half majority the time. He doesn’t know any better, Madara completely lobotomized him from a young age to be his pawn after he died. A patsy for his own gain for Madara’s return from death.

• Definitely died virginal. Unless he fucked a white Zetsu, and as a teen he wasn’t very explorative given the seclusion and watchful eye of old man Madara. Plus he was focused on healing and growing half his damn body back. Plus, he didn’t look like himself anymore which probably gave him a bit of body dysmorphia and fed his insecurities.

• Genuinely believed he was being led the correct path in life. That he didn’t need anyone or the village — just Madara (especially didn’t need that Bakashi!!).

• Like majority of the men who are traumatized in this series, Obito can’t sleep at night. Late at night the inner confines of his mind play psychological warfare and close in on himself. ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ ‘Will this really make me feel better?’ ‘Will peace come once the dust settles?’

• Holds in his emotions until they crush him, figuratively and literally. Then he really carries the mantra of ‘burdened with glorious purpose.’ It replaces the heart on his sleeve and that’s when he hardens — or he thinks.

• Seeing Rin die definitely was that final straw and at the hands of Kakashi without any preemptive warning on the situation at hand. This is where Obito does a 180 and harnesses that resolve to carryon Madara’s will. Which is where Tobi comes out.

Tobi:

• Let’s see. I think when Obito designed became prisoner to this persona, it was a coping mechanism. Tobi was one way to get around his turmoil and needing a disguise was the perfect way to avoid dealing with deep seated issues. Win/win/???.

• It makes keeping a distance from the other Akatsuki members easier. Tobi doesn’t want to talk about his trauma or about his family’s history. When Itachi joins it’s imperative that the rest don’t know his secret. What trauma? He’s a new man in this new little world he’s made.

• Which is why in the beginning he’s such a butterball of feigned ignorant bliss. Obito never had the chance at a real childhood so what better way than to live that vicariously through his second ego?

• It also boosted his confidence, tremendously. Being an authoritative figure hiding within the ranks of a hand basket of deplorables made him deliciously confident. He can’t pinpoint why exactly, but having the Akatsuki on the string of his tennis shoe like puppets is an ego boost. It’s an added bonus that most are unsuspecting.

• I think Tobi sleeps most nights peacefully, not always though. Still has these moments of uncertainty, like that meme of your brain before going to bed and it spouts off some shit you’d rather not spend the night debating with yourself about. That still happens to Tobi but not as frequently as when it was Obito in the cockpit of his psyche.

• At the end of the day; we all have a face that we would hide. The face of a stranger, and when it comes to Tobi, Obito is his dead name — he doesn’t recognize much beyond the hurt that got him to where he was today. Letting it fester and further infect his brain. What did they call it? The curse of hatred: Obito is the poster child for this. Sure Sasuke would be a runner up but Sasuke literally chose the path of vengeance, Obito was molded by it. Tobi is the darkness and Obito became a prior life.

[mama-qwerty]

You've comments on it, but in my fics, I think Eclipse is struggling with in this new home, he doesn't know where the limit is. Back on the comet, he knew EXACTLY what he had to do for his father and what would upset him and would what please him.

Here he wonders what will make someone snap and attack me in a fit of rage? Can I be thrown out of the house if I do something wrong? and that stresses him out.

At least he knew what to expect back on the comet. Here it's anyone's guess

Long term abuse rewrites your brain. You develop coping mechanisms for dealing with it, learning the triggers and warning signs. Your stomach is in a nearly constant state of clench. Senses on high alert. You're hyperaware of every move you make, and run every thought, every action, every word through a dozen mental filters to determine if anything will set your abuser off. And even then you could be wrong.

Eclipse had the additional stress that Black Doom could read his mind. So he had to develop even more filters and ways of coping.

There are times Black Doom would yell at Eclipse. Sending the sound of screams into his head for hours. Those were bad.

But the times he was silent were worse.

The leader of the Black Arms could block his mind from being probed by the lesser members, including Eclipse, and if BD was silent, that was bad. Those were the times Eclipse tried to be extra obedient, extra vigilant. He didn't know what his father was thinking. He didn't know if punishment was coming. He didn't know what he had done--or hadn't done--to incur his wrath this time.

It was almost a relief when the other shoe dropped and Eclipse felt the pain of whatever punishment his father handed down.

But even after the abuse ends, that mindset doesn't.

You flinch when someone talks too loud. You steel yourself if someone moves too quickly. You're still examining everything you say, often staying silent out of habit. You're still hyperaware of your surroundings, keeping an eye on the exit, not letting yourself get pushed into a corner.

And you're always waiting for that other shoe to drop. No matter how long it's been. No matter how safe you feel.

There'll come a time when Eclipse pushes too far, steps over the line too often. And he'll make others mad at him. And all those fears will rush forward, but it will feel comfortable, because this is what he knows. This is normal. Not the kindness. Not the caring. Not the gentle touches, or the soft voices, or the promises that he'll never be hurt.

Talk is cheap.

But when the harsh punishment doesn't come, when he isn't beaten or starved or screamed at or threatened with being eaten alive by the scavengers, that will be even scarier. Because he doesn't understand it. Why aren't they hurting him? There's a routine--he does something bad, he gets punished, life goes on. But without punishment, it's like an open wound (ironically). He has no closure, no sense of end to this situation.

The stress and fear and confusion and anxiety continue to grow, and he can't help but act out more. Testing, pushing the boundaries. Where's the line? Where's the moment that they snap and lash out at him? He can't keep himself safe if he doesn't know how far to go, how to recognize when they're going to hurt him.

He's on edge, even worse than he was on the Comet. He can't read their minds, he can't understand their actions. Their words are weak and teasing and he won't be fooled. But no matter what he does, they don't retaliate. They don't snap and hurt him.

And the thought that maybe they're telling the truth starts to whisper to him.

And it scares the hell out of him.

Because this is new. This is strange. This is uncharted territory and not only removes the threat of corporal punishment, but also gives him the option of not having to live worried about the next bout of pain. They don't expect anything from him.

So . . . now what? How does he behave? What's his purpose? He's supposed to just live?? HOW??

I have a lot of these thoughts for my verse's Eclipse. He's very much like a wild animal that's been beaten and abused, and needs to feel safe and comfortable before he can be 'domesticated'. Well, as much as Eclipse can be domesticated.

[kojoty]

The thing about identity is that it changes with the tides of what is happening to you, just intrinsically, so it is very difficult to pattern map exactly what is exacerbating what facet. But, astutely, it has been made known to me that summer Michael is far more stable in identity than winter Michael. Which makes sense. Because when I over book myself to the brim with friends and community and outdoors and tasks in the caliber that one can in the heat and sun-- going honeybee mode-- a lot of the dips and crests even out through sheer pleasant and earned exhaustion by the end of the night. Whereas in the winter.... Not as much to do and far more time spent stuck inside my own brain and head landscape. But then also it is true that I pretty much...... Hm

To say I'm different than last year is no joke, and to say that the me from before June 8th feels like a Ghost is also no joke. But it's not as though I'm completely fresh and new--phoenix rising metaphor and all, even if I cauterize and burned myself down to the ash, the ash still had.... Me...? Inside it. It's like taking a sickly tree and cutting it down to the trunk and letting it grow back stronger. It's different! But the same in many ways. And I have spent month-- 12of them-- crawling out of the controlled burn and trying to map myself. So the 'patterns' I'm noting are, to an extent, not just new, but patterns that I am cultivating and honing and shaping. So much of this is new again. Even without a dissasociative condition-- of which I generally exist in shades and facets of three different main Genres , I've found-- so much of post addiction is looking back at your self in addiction and not recognizing the person in the mirror. Many memoirs and accounts of addiction talk aboht this. They feel alien to you even as they feel the same as you. It feels like a version of you that lies dormant. A bundle of every bad habit and unhealthy coping mechanism rolled into one person that becomes VERY good at lying. But when you cauterize that, you don't just *develop* health over night. You have to work on it.

And that's what I've been doing and will continue doing. Sobriety has helped me prioritize the greatest and most personal project I will ever have the honor of completing-- me. This is all over the place. I guess.... Pattern mapping and finding the patterns in yourself is cool. But I'm just now, a year in to Michael Whit Misha whatever able to see just the beginnings of what that looks like, with a healthy body, a healthier mind, a more keen outlook and insight.

Identity is funny and silly and if nothing else, the freedom to demand and assert that I can be whatever identities I choose to form with deliberation has been monumental in letting those cauterized ashes lay to rest, because at the core of it, addiction personalities are formed from a desire to not just appease those who aren't you, but to delete the aspects of yourself that ARE authentic. And in authenticity I have lost some of those that aren't me. But I've gained a hell of a lot meaningful relationships the more I've been unapologetic and taken accountability for the spaces I should and shouldn't inhabit. And my community and my relationships are the reason for doing it and I am so full to the brim with love every day of my life now. Even on the hard days, at least, I can say without lying that I am trying my fucking best. And I can mean it. Anyways.

Project year 1 complete 👍

[fuluga]

Luz - Emotional Processing Notes (this is the organized version see below for my brainrot version)

Luz exhibits traits of alexithymia, specifically struggling to label her emotions despite feeling them intensely. Her physical reactions often clue her in to what she might be feeling, though she's prone to misinterpretation. She’s never been to therapy, so her self-awareness is limited, but through her experiences and interactions, she begins to piece things together.

Examples: In a high-stake situation in SR1 she mistakes fear for anger (elevated heart rate, body sweat, etc.) and has an explosive reaction that complicates a situation.

Notes: Luz’s lack of therapy/proper emotional understanding does eventually lead to growth. I envision this through multiple characters from the series who have undergone therapy to some degree recognizing Luz's struggles and offering insight, even if it’s initially rejected. It plants the seed in her head. (This might end up being her sister, Elena who she communicates with occasionally at the hospital.)

Anger is the easiest emotion for Luz to recognize because it produces clear physical symptoms: a racing heart, tension, and a surge of energy. She channels this into violence, finding a return to homeostasis after releasing her pent-up energy. Murdering, descruction, fighting, the whole lot here. This coping mechanism is both a strength and a weakness, as it sometimes leads to impulsive actions but also explains why she hasn’t flat out died yet.

—

Transitioning/Dysphoria

Luz's transition in her early twenties is delayed due to her inability to identify her dysphoria. Throughout SR1, her anger and volatility are heightened by this unrecognized core discomfort. As she ages, listens to her companions, makes friends, and deals with challenges as Playa, she starts to understand herself better.

Examples: My brain is struggling here but just imagine some inner monologues that show her lifelong but unrecognized dysphoria. Moments where she feels out of place, angry without understanding why, these all gradually lead to her realization pretty quickly into SR1 storyline but she stays closeted as Cez for awhile. She waits to gain reputation and respect.

Notes: Unrelated but really curious as to how yall canon Saints companions reacting to a trans Playa character. I feel like there’s room for stuff here but I haven’t really thought about it… like for someone like Luz who is besties with Aisha and Johnny would they have an opinion? Approve/dissaprove initially? How does it affect their friendship if there is some phobic vibes or does it not affect it at all due to the respect Playa has as a person idk

—

Relationship w/ Johnny and Aisha

Luz is a keen observer, especially in SR1, using others as a reference to understand her emotions. She connects with Johnny because of his directness and unapologetic nature, which aligns with her literal thinking. She admires Aisha’s femininity, success, and passion for music. Their romantic relationship confuses Luz, but third-wheeling with them helps her gather insights.

Notes: The insights are not always great. I think Luz would try to emulate aspects of Johnny and Aisha’s relationship in her own flings, but it fails, which adds to her confusion and irritation. An example like taking someone out to Freckle Bitches on a first date. Johnny did it and Aisha stayed, why can’t I? The reason why she emulates them I think is because she does recognize they have a deep bond whether they realize it or not. She can identify the emotion in them but she would not be able to do it in herself if that makes sense? She does want a real relationship like theirs at first but she fails too many times with her shitty method in SR1 so she becomes a player. Playa. Get it. (Aisha and Johnny 100% bully her for this as a bestie trio thing)

Flings and Manipulation and… Gaslighting?

In SR1, Luz engages in random flings and flirts with strangers, often as a means of emotional manipulation and gaslighting. These unreliable relationships reflect her dysfunctional understanding of normal relationships. She feels nothing genuine for her romantic pursuits, kinda just using them as a way to waste time and gain influence/information, focusing on power and ambition as main traits in this game. She is not extroverted at all so she kinda has that silent guy rizz and a pretty face that worked somehow on men and women.

Shift in SR2

By SR2, Luz has grown more emotionally aware and confident in her identity. Transitioning has expanded her emotional range, thanks to gender-affirming care and hormones. She remains direct and brash but is less obsessed with power, knowing her worth. (Getting blown up does that to ya) Her leadership style is defined by her no-nonsense attitude and refusal to take any disrespect.

Luz’s relationships with her companions evolve. She gets along well with Johnny and Aisha (post coma reunion) and they both play a significant role in her life. She idealizes Johnny/Aisha a bit as power couple despite their issues because she can identify that core emotion in them. Ask her to identify that emotion in herself though and she cannot.

—

Relationship w/ Luz and Carlos

Carlos's willingness to do anything for Luz puzzles her. She explores this by befriending him, experiencing a mix of flirty vibes and a sense of normalcy that she can’t quite interpret. Her interactions with Carlos are marked by fluctuating feelings she can’t label. The gang notices this dynamic, but Luz denies it. After Carlos's death, Luz is overwhelmed with regret, realizing too late how much she cared for him. This is a pivotal moment for her emotional clarity.

Examples: "Luz, you ever wonder why we do this?" Carlos spoke softly, acknowledging their closeness. Luz felt her chest well with tightness, misinterpreting the feeling that rose in her body. “It’s about power, Carlos. Nothing else.” Carlos blinked at her slowly, “For you, maybe. For me, it’s different.” Luz distanced herself from Carlos, attempting to brush off his words. “Stop overthinking it.”

Post Death:

Luz held the gold chain Carlos wore, pressing her thumb against the cross pendant. “Why does this hurt so much?” She whispered to herself, the tightness in her chest returning, sharper. She could not ignore or misplace the deep wound she felt. It wasn’t about power. It wasn’t about anger. It was loss. Regret.

—

Impact of Aisha’s Death

Aisha’s death hits Luz hard, triggering intense feelings of sadness, guilt, and envy. These emotions, compounded by Johnny's grief, strain their friendship. They become coworkers rather than close friends, driven by a shared goal of vengeance. Luz compartmentalizes her emotions, focusing on tracking down those responsible, leading to resentment and conflict with Johnny.

Luz and Johnny’s relationship deteriorates after their losses. They clash, with harsh words and physical fights reflecting their internal turmoil. (Peep that art i made) (I also kinda see the fight as a foil to their previous friendship and the end of SR1 them and start of sr2 them) Their arguments include comparisons of their losses, revealing their vulnerabilities at the core. Eventually, they realize they must support each other rather than fight, leading to a tentative truce. Their relationship rebuilds slowly, marked by raw honesty and mutual growth between the duo.

Luz’s feelings for Johnny develop over time. She recognizes her emotions sooner than she did with Carlos but remains hesitant. A slow burn towards a romantic relationship vibes. Imagine scenes where there is chemistry but unspoken. Classic unintentional physical closeness- I don’t know Luz is questioning her feelings. Debating on giving them a romantic encounter before the fight to serve as a catalyst but unsure. Unresolved feelings about Aisha and Carlos with that poor choice of sexual distraction could be interesting way to confront guilt/grief.

Examples: im too dead for this

"You don’t get it, Luz. Aisha’s death is on all of us."

"How can you say that? I didn’t kill her!"

I don’t know words here

*anger and confusion, lashing out grrrr* “Don't you dare compare your loss to mine. Carlos was—"

”Was what, Luz? ‘Nother pawn to you?"

Luz explodes in anger, initiating a physical fight

After

Bruised and bleeding

"We can't keep doing this, Johnny. We’re on the same side."

“Yeah, well, maybe if we talked instead of throwing punches..."

“Talking’s not exactly our thing."

“No, but maybe it should be."

[jennycalendar]

gje ask: how long do you think it takes before Ethan stops being utterly horrified by the concept that he actually genuinely likes Jenny as a person? bc i feel like that would be A While but also it would probably be very... a year in, a switch flips in his brain and she's suddenly his favorite non-Ripper person ever, but he still isn't going to SAY that so he's just. causing problems for anyone who annoys her as a weird fucked up form of affection.

so i think that initially ethan approaches his deep interest in jenny with horrified anthropological precision. like he is obsessively going out of his way to spend time with her and spying on all of her dates with giles and he is very clear to her, giles, and anyone who will listen to his loud and dramatic protestations that this is because he just Doesn’t Get what giles sees in jenny, but the reality of it is that he (like giles) got trapped in the That Woman Is Too Hot And Can’t Be Real sinkhole and (like giles) is handling it with all the maladaptive coping mechanisms that 20+ years of unaddressed emotional baggage have created. except with giles it’s all about I Don’t Deserve Jenny, but with ethan it’s I Must Undermine Jenny. he HAS to find the flaw in her code and prove that she’s not actually that hot and interesting and perfect, and OBVIOUSLY that means spending time with her because he is RESEARCHING, and eventually + inevitably he will find out the truth and bring this fakey too good to be true relationship CRASHING TO ITS KNEES. he is a genius.

meanwhile, jenny has started taking ethan to her favorite bookstores “for enrichment” and is debating him because she thinks chaos as a concept should be ambivalent to the notion of causing harm, not averting one’s eyes from it, which is what ethan does, which sure does seem like he cares!!!! so maybe he’s not that good at his job!!! and ethan starts fighting with her all the time and giles in the background is like Oh Fuck I See Where This Is Going and starts trying to frantically stop it from happening solely because he doesn’t think he can psychologically take having ethan and jenny as partners at the same time, BUT if presented the option will immediately grab it without hesitation, because something is clinically wrong with him.

in my head there is at some point an accidental kiss that absolutely fucks up both of them and both of them agonize over what giles will think. probably, because they are both so clinically stupid in the exact same way, they kissed in giles’s apartment, giles saw them, giles went “well, i really am at the whims of the universe and my two incredibly hot partners are definitely going to murder me,” and then giles went grocery shopping to give ethan and jenny some time to freak out as individuals.

i think that the switch gets flipped the instant the romantic component comes into play, but you are so right that the horror is immediate and perpetual. suddenly this is the most perfect person outside of giles and ethan would literally die for her in a way that is sorta very different from his experiences with giles??? because jenny is SO VULNERABLE in a way that means ethan’s usual brand of Emotional Violence As Romance is going to go SO BADLY and also make giles literally kill him. he knows from minute one that digging his claws into her insecurities is the very fastest way to lose her, simply because her heart is so so on her sleeve, and once she knows that you know that, if you do it deliberate and calculated damage for no other reason than Showing Her Up, you are done. i think he would be most horrified of the fact that he recognizes there are limits with jenny and feels a desire to respect those limits. (giles thinks this is fucking hilarious btw.)

there is probably this transitional period where jenny is emotionally vulnerable with ethan and he is awkwardly sweet in response and then as soon as she’s settled and it’s over he has to go outside and burn down half the front porch just to make himself feel better. giles is kinda like ok i guess i will take up gardening so you have more things to burn or something. they are developing a system.

so to answer your question ….. a year. that sounds about right. i do think that a year in someone makes jenny make a slightly hurt expression and ethan MASSIVELY overreacts and fucking stabs the guy with an actual knife. jenny is like “wow :)” and giles is like NO DO NOT ENCOURAGE THIS. NO MORE STABBING. WE DID THIS ONCE ALREADY I LITERALLY CANNOT TAKE THIS AGAIN.

[illegiblewords]

Discussing the sex lives of wizards in the name of psychology under the cut! BG3, warning for discussion of suicide and mental health issues.

Man, analysis of Gale’s sex scene keeps getting waved under my nose with the notion that if you don’t go with Weave you’ve done something wrong. I addressed it already but like.

1) One of the popular arguments is that Gale is magic, magic is Gale, you might as well forbid an artist from painting. One could argue that particular mentality is a huge part of why Gale having issues. I said it before but like—speaking from having been there IRL with writing and editing. As a creative, you don’t lose your entire medium if you take time to focus on acknowledging your self-worth and those who love you without the medium. It’s actually insanely important to be able to do that imo. Not making the first sexual encounter be through magic doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen or is an inferior thing generally. I think emphasizing it as a first encounter and not a last one is a huge deal. It’s also a big step beyond what Gale expects for himself at that point.

The reality Gale had resigned himself to, that he was terrified of, involved obeying Mystra even if she ordered him to kill himself. Her love and his worth are conditional upon how well he can please her. Gale’s ‘comfort zone’ of performing acts of service specifically to retain worth is actively harmful to him and is part of what he was conditioned to accept through abuse. Even in Act III he can struggle with the idea that he is not defined by Mystra’s expectations of him. Like Shadowheart, stepping into choices beyond the will of his goddess is almost unfathomable. It’s still really important to recognize there are other possibilities.

2) There’s a dev note about Gale bowing to the player’s preference if the player opts for non-magical sex. I want to pose for your consideration as a comparison—is it better to farm Astarion’s approval by staying in his comfort zone/sense of the familiar (cruelty, violence) when those things are maladaptive? It comes out a lot through the game that an overwhelming amount of his behavior ties to coping mechanisms that helped him survive with Cazador, but it’s extremely unhealthy outside of that scenario.

All of the companions have trauma caused by abuse. All of them have some measure of mental health issues at work tied to that. And the thing with mental illness linked to trauma is, that person’s brain is doing the best it can to protect them from threats. When the threat is no longer present and they have room to seek health + stability, those coping mechanisms may become a hindrance instead. For Gale, he’s struggled with severe isolation and self-esteem problems to the point that he’s convinced that without magic or unique acts of service he shouldn’t be alive. Mystra has reinforced this. I pose the threat to him (by his perception) has been worthlessness and abandonment. His defense became to make himself irreplaceably valuable through his abilities so he has a concrete defense against those threats. Gale is still learning to adapt to healthy relationships that aren’t with Mystra, where he isn’t being framed as expendable.

Another thing I want to raise for consideration is that there’s a pattern common to people preparing to kill themselves. This involves wrapping up unfinished business, giving away belongings, basically saying good-bye. Gale starts the ‘last night’ scene with that exact intent and mindset. He is planning to die. A player insisting against suicide is not wronging Gale. A player interacting with Gale outside his trauma to offer a different, more stable lifeline than ‘worth through abilities and offerings’ is not doing him a disservice.

Change and recovery can both be fucking scary. You literally have to challenge the way you look at the world, yourself, and other people. For a while you lose all sense of how to judge in that new context. There’s no guarantee the attempt to change will pay off. The idea of trying and failing is scary as hell under those circumstances too because it risks finding hope only for it to be destroyed again. That hurts more than if you've already given up and are braced for further harm.

It’s still important to try though. Living in despair is pretty horrific. I’ll go a step further too to say feeding someone’s mental illness can be a form of abuse. I don’t think taking the Weave-sex option is abusive, but there is some risk of encouraging harmful complexes for Gale depending on interpretation.

The player seeing Gale’s tower, his books, Waterdeep—those are still beautiful things. But he presents them when and how he does because he’s planning to kill himself. I’d argue Gale offers to give as much as he knows how, as well as he knows how, specifically because he’s planning to kill himself. He wants to give the best of himself and his life to his love before he dies. He wants that to mean something to his love. Insisting that suicide is not on the table and that the sex scene is a first time rather than a last is still alien territory for Gale because of how much his sense of possibility has been narrowed. It also involves a radically different perception of relationships for Gale if they aren’t rooted in magic. Of course he’s nervous. What if his partner changes their mind? What if they’re disappointed? What if he says or does the wrong thing? What if he’s clumsy? What if he doesn’t make the encounter everything he wants to say and do only to kill himself after all? What if Gale Dekarios (not Gale of Waterdeep) slips from the world unmourned? What if his only legacy is how he died?

But again, Gale’s partner can insist this isn’t a last encounter. It’s a first. He doesn’t have to do everything right now. He doesn’t have to be running out of time the way he’s believed for over a year.

And by-the-by, sometimes partners do try new things together. Sometimes that involves trepidation. Being nervous isn’t mutually exclusive with consent or even having a good time. Sometimes having existing habits and mentalities challenged can result in growth, improved well-being, and finding new stuff to enjoy. Just gotta be mindful.

Again, Gale’s coping mechanism against the threat of abandonment is acquiring value in what he can uniquely give others. I would argue that for the physical sex scene in particular, there’s an opportunity to give to him instead. This would likely be somewhat beyond his experience and comfort zone given he was expected to impress his goddess through offerings before. Gale has a real fear of being deemed replaceable and discarded if he has nothing unique to provide. Positioned as someone being offered to is foreign for him. And doing it on mundane terms, not as the wizard of Waterdeep but as just Gale—that’s also foreign. Doesn’t make it a bad thing though. Imo it really is a good first step.

3) I’ve seen people get pissed about how the game can imply Gale isn’t great at physical sex. Between the books he reads and his relationship with Mystra, I’m going to suggest it’s possible Mystra was solely dealing with Gale on her terms, in the Weave, non-physically. And I’m also going to suggest that Gale has wanted to do more physically but felt like it was a dirty, ungrateful, mortal thing to want from his goddess. Would explain why he’s not as confident there. The fact that he has a book full of physical sex acts only to leave bodies behind just adds to my suspicion that while he knows he’s very good at Weave-sex, there’s a lot he never got to explore with Mystra regardless of his own interest.

I also really, really think it’s okay if Gale is less experienced with physical sex. No one is born knowing everything. Being able to engage in a safe way (so partner not being an ass about it lol), try new things, and become more familiar through practice could be sweet. No pressure, his partner wants to share this with him. Guy’s clearly a fast and enthusiastic learner anyway. 😉

I’d like to think Gale gets to deal with weird body sounds or moving inelegantly only to find it’s okay to laugh about that stuff. There’s less pressure. He can do things like boop his partner’s nose or make them reach to kiss him. Sex doesn’t always have to be some immaculate, serious affair. It isn’t his last chance. He isn’t being abandoned. He’s personally valued in this relationship.

Characters can have clumsy but heartfelt sex. Characters can have clumsy but charged fight scenes too. Areas of imperfection are part of being alive and there’s room to examine that in storytelling. Not everything needs to be expertly choreographed.

As one last thing, like… the sense I’m getting between discussions is that there’s some conversion contest stuff going on. Trying to put down one sex scene to justify the other schtick. Maybe I fueled that accidentally, dunno. I think some of it probably comes down to different interpretations of characters between fans. For my interpretation, I don’t think Weave-sex would work thematically. Another person’s interpretation might be a different story altogether.

Part of what makes Baldur’s Gate 3 cool imo is how varied the stories that come out of it can be. Which is to say nothing for fans bringing different spins. I might not go with God-Gale and see that iteration as tragic/unheathy. Somebody else might think it’s poetic justice since Mystra is a former mortal who ascended to godhood herself, and God-Gale realizes he is no less worthy than her. There is mutability here imo and I hope this can clarify I really do mean it on varied reads.

[ivyblossom]

Building ADHD Coping Strategies

I was diagnosed very late in life (I was 44), so I stumbled upon some strategies for coping with ADHD without knowing that's what I was doing. A late diagnosis is both immensely frustrating and kind of like winning a weird award at the same time. I live with regret about my lost "potential" and a lifetime of firebombing of my own goals, and wondering what I might have managed to accomplish by now if I'd known I was different, but I also get to have a not-insignificant amount of pride about what I've managed to accomplish in spite of having a fucked up brain.

To address the usual assumptions: no, my ADHD wasn't missed because I have "girl ADHD" or a milder, less disruptive version. I have severe, hyperactive-impulsive ADHD. Then as now, girls aren't given the same benefit of the doubt that boys so often are. Also, since ADHD is almost always inherited, my behaviour and struggles were never considered weird or concerning to my mother or to my grandmother, to whom my behaviour was completely familiar, so they weren't going to flag any of it as anything other than normal.

The first thing a diagnosis gives us is permission to take care of ourselves the way we need to. There were lots of things I would like to have done to help myself complete tasks, but they look to others like going overboard or overthinking things, and people always tell me that I'm going too far, so I didn't allow my coping mechanisms be what they needed to be. The diagnosis lets me ignore those criticisms and hesitations. All ADHD hacks and coping strategies seem like "too much" to other people, so I have accepted that that criticism is meaningless and ableist, and I let myself ignore it. That alone is probably one of the best reasons to get a formal diagnosis, and the best coping strategy I have.

If something I try fails, I begin with the assumption that the issue is a missing step in the process, not that I just didn't try hard enough. Self-blame is useless and an obstacle. If a process requires me to try harder, it's a broken process. The goal is to create systems that guide me towards success and feel easy and seamless, and blaming myself doesn't help me get there. I feel badly about hurting other people or letting them down, but I have stopped blaming myself. The problem was never that I didn't care or wasn't trying hard enough. It's just the wrong systems and missing steps. Instead of feeling guilty, I apologize and explain to the person I've harmed how I'm working to avoid repeating my mistake. They can accept that or not.

One of the additional complications of ADHD is that it impacts all the executive functions, and the ability to recognize that you're struggling with a task and why requires several of those. So one of the things I've accepted is that it's okay that I don't know why I'm struggling with something. I have spent my life making up reasons for my fuck ups that feel true, but that doesn't mean they are. I've embraced the fact that not understanding why something is hard or why something failed only means I don't understand how my deficits are at play in this situation yet, and I shouldn't make assumptions about what will and won't work. Now I try to design solutions based on a few core elements where I know I have deficits and see how it goes.

Having a deficit that impacts executive function means a person with ADHD will likely not recognize or be able to see their own symptoms. I never once even considered that I might have ADHD before the age of 40, and even then I only identified with the executive function issues, not "attention deficit". I do not have an attention deficit, and I have never felt distracted. I am always laser-focused on something, it's just that that what that is can change every 30 seconds (or not change for 30 hours) without me noticing. I can only recognize "distraction" (getting pushed off task by following an impulse) when medicated. If I could see that task-shift happening, I could choose to stop it and stay on task, but without medication, I can't. ADHD is a form of inner blindness, a struggle with self-awareness and limited tool set for self-control. So another way to cope is to accept that you don't know what you don't know, and parts of you are on an auto-pilot. But you can connect with yourself to recognize, understand, and control all of these things. It just looks weird when you do it. And that's okay.

Externalizing Habit Formation

I go with the assumption that I can't form habits. It's possible I can, but I find it more useful to assume I can't. If I can't form habits, then I need to find other ways to get habitual things accomplished regularly without needing to remember to do them, and without needing to think about it. I have externalized every habit I can, and I keep adding more. Externalizing basic stuff means I waste no energy trying to remember to do them, so I save my brain for bigger things.

I've found that the first task in any strategy is planning ahead, as much as that's an agonizing concept to wrap my head around. 9 times out of 10, if something doesn't work, it's because there's another, more basic plan missing that I need first. Like can't plan meals without having a list of meals I like handy. I can't do the recall and the planning at the same time. But that's okay: I can just keep lists of meals once I know I need that.

I build my habits in a spreadsheet, beginning with the things I wish I were doing and when, and guessing how much time they take. This is how I learned that I need 90 minutes to have the morning I want to have, and for years I gave myself 20 minutes to do it. And I wondered why that wasn't working!

My future self is like a floppy puppy, and I need to give that floppy puppy some structure to keep her going in the direction she wants to be going in. I need the floppy puppy to be a) rested, b) clean, c) clothed, d) fed on a schedule so that she can tackle the unplanned tasks of the day at her best, so I lay the groundwork so that the basics will be covered without her having to think about or remember to do any of it. For normal people this is just being an adult, but I am not normal people, so my process is different.

Figuring out what habits I should have sounds easy, but it's harder than I thought. I have spent many hours designing and testing ideal routines (morning, evening, weekly, etc.), and it quickly realized that not only was I expecting to just magically do all these things without planning or a prompt before now, I wasn't even completely sure what I wanted or needed to do at any given time, so no wonder I wasn't reliably doing any of it. Determining how to offload "habits" and design prompts for them instead is an ongoing task.

To outsource habit-formation, I designed programmed audio and light prompts in daily and weekly routines via smart speakers that I keep in every room of my home. I find audio more powerful than visual screen prompts, and designing them as routines means they are regular and continuous and don't require intervention from me. In sum, I program rooms to remind me what I should be doing, and to adjust the lighting accordingly. So lights will go off in rooms I shouldn't be in, and go on in rooms i should be.

Anything I want to do habitually (like wash my face, brush my teeth, take a shower, eat breakfast, prep my lunch, plan dinner, wash my sheets, etc.) I plan and program a timed, daily or weekly prompt for. There are really no limits on this. I started by building a morning routine of prompts to keep me on task in the mornings, and then an evening routine (lay out clothes for tomorrow, get tomorrow's dinner out of the freezer, etc.) I keep building more of them as time goes on. Not only does it keep me from having to remember what I need to do, it adds texture to time and helps me recognize that time is passing.

Sometimes just these reminder isn't enough. I have learned that sometimes, to keep myself on schedule, I need to disrupt my hyperfocus. Figuring out how to do that is a task in itself. I use smart plugs on all my lamps so that I can set them to switch off on a schedule. I have created a playlist to start playing when I should be switching tasks (and getting ready for bed). Finally, I created a routine to cut power to my TV at a certain time. I can switch it back on, but it's enough work that it shakes me out of a pointless next-episode loop if I'm in one. One of the most useful things I've done to help me get out of bed in the mornings is set the whole thing to start 5 minutes earlier than then giving myself the option to ignore it for 5 minutes. For some reason that works. Possibly it just stages the transition? Not sure.

I've recently learned that getting myself to make my bed the moment I get out of it is a good way to avoid getting back into it. Also, it makes my room look nice. Which leads me to...

Filling Necessary Tasks with Tiny Joys

In retrospect I can see that one of my first coping mechanisms is using enthusiasm to motivate myself. I can create enthusiasm about almost anything, and once I'm enthusiastic, I'm more likely to follow through on a task. I find deadlines and stress too stressful a motivator, so I opted with joy and delight instead.

I try to add elements of delight to things I need to do. A shower filled with products that don't make me smile isn't a shower I'll avoid exactly, but it's not one I'll be pleased to jump into. So I put time and energy into finding out what shampoo and soap that I love. I let myself have scent obsessions. For a while I wanted everything to smell like desserts, but at the moment I'm into citrus. Is this silly? Yes. But I indulge it because it's part of making necessary tasks easier to do.

I need to get myself to bed on time, so making my bedroom delightful is another indulgence to allow myself without guilt. That means paying attention to the aesthetics, and also to textures. I need to have clean sheets, and I need to have sheets I love that feel amazing. Currently really into silky bamboo sheets. And I will reject a laundry detergent, even if it's a full bottle, if the smell of it doesn't make me happy. Wasteful? Yes. But I will indulge myself in these ways because it's part of the joy-forward plan.

I have struggled with breakfast for years, but have now solved it, partly just by making time for it, and partly by properly planning for it, but also by making it as delightful as a can. I've been making myself a honey latte using this very bougie honey + bee pollen honey I found at the market, and do I ever look forward to that latte! It's a weird flex to see your fuck ups and respond by rewarding yourself, but I've found that joy and delight yields better results than any form of deprivation or punishment, and it's results I'm after.

Externalizing Working Memory and Recall

My life is littered with evidence that I have a limited working memory, but the concept of working memory is relatively opaque to us. What's the difference between short-term memory and working memory? How does recall fit in? Don't ask me! All I know is that I need to externalize more than I think I do, so when things go pear-shaped, I try externalizing more information to see if it helps.

One of the ways I've externalized information relates to food. I have a long history of planning meals, buying all kinds of lovely ingredients, and then letting them rot in my fridge. I've deduced that part of the problem is that when I'm tired and thinking about other things, I don't have the capacity to mentally go back into that plan and pull out the idea for this meal. That's too much mental work for me at that point in the day. (Could I conjure up an entire novel's worth of plot? Yes! But remembering what I had planned to eat for dinner? Nope.) Even opening the fridge might not trigger my recall. So now I have a whiteboard on my fridge where I write what meals I planned for the day so that I don't have to remember. It's always easier for me to pick from a list than the recall anything. So I give myself lists when I need them.

My most Helpful Purchases (so far)

Electric kettle: one that switches itself off. That way, if you forget you put the kettle on, no harm done.

Smart speakers: I use Alexa devices, but apple and google devices work basically the same way. You can build routines and have them triggered by command, or time, or proximity, etc. I haven't needed to use IFTTT to accomplish anything yet, but I'm ready to. I use my phone all the time, but I also abandon it randomly, so I find apps less useful for controlling my behaviour than audio and light signals in my home. Most of my habits happen in my home anyway.

Magnetic Whiteboards: for my fridge. I have two little ones.

Robovac: Somehow I'm just more likely to let Kyle my robovac run loose than I am to vaccum myself.

Solid shampoo and conditioner: it's less plastic and better for the environment, but mainly I use solid shampoo and conditioner because I can have a year's worth of it in my bathroom without looking like a hoarder. I have a tendency to hoard things I fear forgetting to have with me. Solid shampoo is small and lasts a long time if you let it air out properly. I stack a year's worth of them in a vase in my bathroom. It looks pretty and it smells nice, but it's actually there because I fear forgetting to buy shampoo and running out. This way I literally can't run out, and when I get to the point where I only have 6 months' worth, the vase doesn't look at pretty, so I re-stock months before I have to.

Multiple laundry baskets: You need as many laundry baskets as you sort into. If you do lights and darks, you need two. If you do lights, darks, and hot water wash, you need three. One laundry basket with three classes of item inside means more thinking required to do laundry, and that's an obstacle. So multiple laundry baskets.

Weekly pill dispenser: I currently take 6 pills in the morning. That seems like a lot, but it's really very mundane: 2 prescriptions (one is two pills to reach the right dose), an antihistamine, vitamin D, and black kohosh. That is too many pills for me to manage individually first thing in the morning. It was too many pills when it was 3 pills. That's too much faffing around, I won't do it consistently, or I won't do it properly more often than not. So I dispense my 6 daily pills into a weekly dispenser. I dispense each day's worth all at once into a beautiful earthenware egg cup, pop them all into my mouth in one go the moment I wake up, and then drink water from a matching beautiful earthenware cup. This means a) I don't need to remember to take them all, and I don't even notice how many of them I'm taking, 6 is the same as 1, b) I can easily add or subtract pills without altering my routine, c) there is beauty involved in the tools and that pleases me, d) I can confirm whether or not I took my pills that day because the dispenser has 7 slots in it.

Wireless phone charger: Why plug your phone in when you could create a home for your phone where a) you know where it is, and b) it charges?

Key dish: I keep my keys in a special dish (next to my wireless phone charger) to avoid the time and stress playing "the key game", where you try to remember where you put your bloody keys. I spent weeks deciding exactly what dish I needed it to be. I ended up getting a on-the-verge-of-hideous second hand candy dish made by a now-defunct factory where my family would visit in the summer, and the weird bowl on display in that borrowed cottage. So it reminds me of happy childhood memories. I love that ugly dish. The fact that it's meaningful seems trite, but that the meaningfulness helps me to remember to put my keys in it. Looking at it gives me happy memories, which helps me to remember to use it, and to remember where my keys are.

Valet stand: this is a piece of furniture. It has a shelf, rail, and a whatsit that looks like a hanger, a thing you could hang a jacket on. They make valet chairs as well and I want one. I use a valet stand to put my next day's clothes on. It's a place to put them, but also a reminder that I need to suit it up before I got to bed. It looks so refined, and it's better than hanging things off my dresser, I figure.

More to come!

[neurodiversebones]

i'm sorry you're having a hard time :( recovery is tough, but i believe in you! if you're comfortable, do you wanna share your recovery headcanons for those characters?

i hope things get better for you soon 💖 you've got this!

thank you !!! i hope things get easier soon as well bc . hhh !!! this is a Lot !!! you are so sweet <33 as for the headcanons i would be Delighted to share them (i am always so nervous to talk abt ed hc's , even if it's recovery related bc i am So Scared of being accused of romanticizing it 😭) . obvious tw for ed's below the cut !

cam :

in recovery from anorexia (AN-R) !

she is like me frfr in that recovery is a Long road for her . she's struggled for a long time, and so recovery is kind of a lifelong process rather than something she can simply Finish and be okay

her ocd has contributed a lot to her ed, and so ed recovery goes hand in hand with ocd recovery. with this, her anxiety starts to go down a Lot !

she has . a lot of guilt pertaining to her ed . guilt over having it, guilt over getting better, guilt over literally Everything . this is something she is Working On in therapy but boy is it a big hurdle

she . really never learned how to cook much , and so something that is helping her associate food with Good Times is learning how ! arastoo is teaching her a lot- these are her favourite nights, being in the kitchen with him and learning how to make something new. he shares his cultural dishes with her and she is so excited about this <3 (she is still not a very good cook because that is just how cam Is . takeout girlie for life .)

brennan :

in recovery from arfid ! as well as orthorexic tendencies

her arfid is specifically related to both sensory issues (hello fellow autistic arfid havers) and trauma (foster care = unreliable access to food)

trying new things is really hard for her- she has a very strict list of foods she eats and has very rarely strayed from that over the years. it takes a few tries before actually being able to eat something new- she needs to be able to look at it, feel the texture, experience the smell and other sensations that come along with it .

her arfid did go generally unnoticed because her safe foods would be considered "atypical"- she doesn't eat highly processed or packaged foods, and almost all of her safe foods are considered "health foods" (thank you orthorexia) .

booth tries new things with her- when she challenges a fear food, he'll try one of her "healthy" foods that he usually wouldn't be a fan of . it helps her to recognize that balance is both possible and healthy , and they are both finding new things they enjoy ! she learned that she rlly enjoys popcorn and sour candy , and he is surprisingly into quinoa now

hodgins :

recovering from ednos / osfed !

his ed was very heavily based in his gender dysphoria , so being able to transition has helped a LOT . a big part of why he recovered was so he could get top surgery without it posing a risk to his health

[SEASON 3 AND SEASON 11 SPOILERS HERE] trauma also plays a big part- he really, really struggled after zack was sent away, as well as after his accident . it's a coping mechanism for him- so in times of stress, he's prone to turn back and relapse

his relationships with others help- his love for angela, his love for his kids, his love for his friends at work- they all keep him grounded and give him something to live for. he wants to be around as long as possible to spend more time with them <3

angela is literally the most patient EVER and it makes him feel so loved and supported (tbh . i have angela headcanons too but my brain is telling me that's Too Many . let me know if u wanna hear those too .)

[TRIGGER WARNING : SH MENTION] he is also in recovery from sh and is almost a year clean which is such a win jack hodgins so cool era

that is all !!!!! i Think about them a lot because all of the bones characters are my comfort characters , so thinking abt them dealing w the stuff i am helps me through a Lot . i love these guys so much they deserve the world

[wutheringmights]

I just want you to know that I am actively brain-rotting. Over what? If Mask and Warriors were there with no Spirit, what if Warriors turned his focus on Mask. And what if Mask ended up just... I'm not sure how to word it-

What if Mask ended up just picking up those abusive tendencies from his time in the war. What if he just picked them up because that was the only way he could think actually be able to be taken seriously or just make it through in general. (After all, if Spirit wasn't there, it's likely Warriors would have just made Mask fight since there's no second hero to help him otherwise)

Would Time have worked through some/most of these tendencies and behaviors by the time LU rolls around? Most likely but canon is my goddamn playground. What if he didn't. What if Time slowly realizes that he's worse than everyone he didn't want to be.

Frankie, I am brain-rotting so heavily over this random idea I have and I'm scared /j

Oooo that sounds really interesting.

I can definitely see Mask mimicking some of Warriors's behaviors without quite realizing what the consequences of those would be. With twenty years and separation from Warriors, I could imagine he would have time to get help and work through them.

But then, meeting Warriors again would be him returning back to an unhealthy environment. He could default back to his old coping mechanisms and habits that he thought saved him the first time around.

So Time would be spiraling slowly and surely from the beginning while Warriors is unaware of his long history with Time and that this decline in behavior isn't normal for him. That is, until Warriors returns to his era and begins his own relapse.

But until then, do you think Warriors would recognize Time's bad behavior? Do you think he would see it as his opportunity to redo his past mistakes and make the right decisions, unaware he is what made Time like this?

[chalkprincesimp]

The Tangibility of LA

Love addiction is something that's difficult for a lot of people to recognize as real. After all what even really is love? How can you be addicted to a concept? The name is misleading, isn't it? Love addicts aren't addicted to love, they're addicted to the chemical cocktail of serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine their brains cook up when "love" is the trigger. There's your substance abuse.

So how can we be so certain that we're addicts when we're addicted to an intangible substance?

Sorry, I said they're, I meant we're. Trigger warning: Addiction & Depression. Some substance glorification.

1. Physical Symptoms I've Experienced

For as long as I can remember whenever I make out with someone new for the first few weeks, my teeth grind uncontrollably and I'm prone to headaches during makeout sessions. I've even been known in extreme cases to start drooling when I am spending time with my trigger. Literal, momentary, involuntary drool. At the beginning of the successful acquisition of a fix, I am prone to manic phases- not sleeping for days, not eating, or even feeling hungry.

2. Fix Hunting

My character completely changes when a fix is at stake. I often times, work long and hard to set up sources for myself, sometimes even years to create the perfect, delectable dynamic of longing. The perfect story to dream about at night. This is done so subtly that sometimes I don't realize I'm doing it. The key to a good fix is longing. If you bite too soon, the high won't last as long. There are very few things I won't do for a fix. Everyone is expendable (except apparently my little sister), even myself. Everything is disposable.

3. Interpersonal Relationships

Anyone who gets between myself and my target fix becomes persona non grata. I can forget truly all of my love for a person the instant they become a threat to my high. After all, I've likely been working on opening this supply chain for a lengthy amount of time. I can come to feel entitled to my target's affections. It can be hard for me to repair a person's image in my eyes after this, no matter how I try to reason with myself. An even more twisted interpretation is that I expect those close to me to acquiesce to my addiction. "Don't they understand?:" "I need it." "Don't they love me? Don't they care about me?" "Can't they see how hard things have been for me?" "How could they deny me it?" "I only needed it for a little while until I got back on my feet."

4. Failure to Acquire Fix

I won't get too descriptive here. We all know the worst-case scenario right? Slightly better than the worst-case scenario though is the depressive phase. Not eating, sleeping, or bathing. Not being able to focus on or enjoy things I love. Devastating dive in self-esteem and self-worth. Lots. Of. Crying. Desperation. It can be hard to feel like it's worth even getting up in the morning because when I envisioned waking up this morning, it was with my fix. In my addict brain, for an indiscriminate amount of time, I must go without my fix or any fix. I must start from scratch searching for a worthy target, building rapport, and intrigue. It can feel like I'll never feel happy again.

I could literally write my thesis on this topic, I know it so intimately. I think I just partially needed to see this on paper so to speak and partially want people to know that L.A. is a real illness. On a better, stronger day, I will describe coping mechanisms and ways I trick myself into not chasing after inappropriate partners, to remind myself how far I've come.

[krazykatrina21]

Control and Stress PT 1

As humans we tend to get overwhelmed when there is too much on our plates. We have all heard the endless quotes that go a little like "you can over think a situation a million different ways but what is going to happen will and no matter how much you overthink, it the outcome will be the same." Yeah, okay. These phrases bring us peace but this peace is fleeting, only lasting a few divine moments before our brains disperse the eloquently put phrases to instead scurry in every which direction reminding us of our endless stressors and tasks. Everything becomes so mundane and the uphill battle continues to grow in our restless minds. Then we try coping mechanisms either we lay still for hours on end, allowing our thoughts to consume us completely - defeated - or we rush into overdrive with distractions that never really touch the root of the issue but since we are active it feels like we are doing something about it. What if i told you about a third option? One that could actually allow us to not only feel powerful but also effortlessly peaceful with a lasting type of tranquility because you see once we master this habit we begin to transform our minds. Our brains begin to, rather than idolizing the exhausting tasks and telling us that we will fail, start to systematically target the tasks and allows us to take a well needed breath. Dont get me wrong the method i will begin to divulge is not glamorous by any means. It takes dedication, hard work and a little rewiring - but with time it will stick to you like the little pine cone seeds while your running through an endless and beautiful forest. This analogy is so important because, you see, these seeds are so miniscule to us, the simply exist and we carry them around planting life everywhere we might voyage without doing it on purpose or with a real effort. The first step is to recognize control. As humans we naturally want to feel empowered to the point where we can manifest or determine our outcomes. My method, rather than shifting this entirely and saying we are unable to {completely} like the endless quotes we are fed, this method requires dedicated thought into the things we can control while also harnessing that energy to create a positive outcome. For example, lets say you have a lot of work that you need to complete for your current job, want to get your masters and also want to save to but a house.