#ok so I think my obsession with our life is DEFINITELY a hyperfixation now

[aruban-spaceshuttle]

DON’T ASK ME ABOUT MY HYPERFIXATION ITS WEIRD AND I WILL GET BULLIED INSTEAD LET ME OCCASIONALLY MENTION IT FROM TIME TO TIME WITH A COMPLETELY NEUTRAL STATEMENT TO MAKE YOU AWARE THAT I KNOW IT EXISTS UNTIL YOU TURN IT INTO A CONVERSATION TOPIC AND I WILL THEREFORE BE ALLOWED TO GIVE A LACKADAISICAL OPINION ABOUT IT AND SUBTLY INFO DUMP WHEN AN ADJACENT SUBJECT COMES UP IN SPEECH THROUGHOUT THE COURSE OF ABOUT TWO TO FOUR DAYS

[california-112]

For the ask game:

If you were a character, who would you be and why?

Very unpopular opinions? Share them here!

Have fun:)

Hi, hello! Thanks for the ask!

This is the list they're from, and I'm still (always!) open to more :)

If you were a character, who would you be and why?

Mulder. Next question...

No, I'll elaborate. For my first reason, I'll quote my own post:

"Imagine. Going through your whole life looking like that." Yeah I can imagine going through my whole life looking like Fox Mulder, it's called gender eurphoria

I spelt euphoria wrong waaah

Apart from the looks, though, he seems to have a pretty cool life. UFO hunting, investigating the supernatural, cool apartment, great partner, fun basement office, action and adventure...of course, there are downsides (missing sister, constant brushes with danger, frequently hunted by the government, paperwork, etc.), but overall it looks very interesting.

However, we're also already not dissimilar. I may not be quite as much of a conspiracy nut as he is (though of course I believe in aliens 🛸), and I'm certainly not about to join the FBI even if the 'uniform' does look hella cool, but we apparently both have issues with sleeping, eating, trust, fire, and obsession/hyperfixation (e.g. Grotesque and his whole search for the Truth), at least. [Let me know if you think my assessment of his character (and/or mine?!) is unfair or wrong; I can't remember exactly what's in canon and what appears more in fanon.]

The most random similarity is that both of us have used the sound of a light aircraft to locate something. In Mulder's case, during S01E15 'Lazarus', it's a sound caught on a recording that helps him find Scully. For me, I was hiking with a group a few years ago and we were mildly lost. However, when I heard a light aeroplane doing spin training, I knew that it could only being doing that over certain areas in our locality, and from the map we had I could work out our location more accurately, the result being that we made it home that evening.

I can also blame Mulder for my new sunflower seed addiction! Thanks a bunch.

Of course, if I were actually to turn up in a TXF episode, it would probably be as background character #3 who has a couple of lines being questioned by Scully whilst Mulder waits moodily in the background, but hey. I want to believe.

Very unpopular opinions? Share them here!

Look, this show may be a new love of mine, but yes, I do already have some potentially unpopular opinions. Buckle in...

I'm not a fan of MSR. You said unpopular! I've really enjoyed the early seasons of the show for the friendship between Mulder and Scully, and I see that as just continuing. Yes, they get closer, how could they not? But I dislike the fact that they (apparently) actually get together in the end and it's canon.

I will add the disclaimer that, yes, I am only up to S05E09 at the moment, and I suppose that the storyline could lead very nicely into it. However, at the moment from what I've seen in content on here like gifsets and edits, I don't think I'll like it, and I prefer the vibe of the show as it now is.

This marries up (!) with my dislike of many of later parts of the mytharc that I'm coming to now. It's probably because I personally prefer monster of the week episodes, but especially the S4 mytharc eps were among my least favourites, and some of them were bordering on a struggle to watch.

Which leads into my general dislike of S4, definitely an unpopular opinion according to the poll that happened recently. I won't go on too much as I've said this in some tags before, but I find it hard to believe that S4 is a favourite season. Yes, there are some good eps! Demons is my favourite of the season and among my top episodes of the show so far, and Tempus Fugit/Max was excellent. But there was also The Field Where I Died, Never Again, Memento Mori, Synchrony, Zero Sum...some of my least favourite episodes so far, that I would probably avoid on a rewatch.

Ok, rant over. Thank you for this ask, it was great fun to think about the answers! :D

[samd1o1]

Gothic Horror HCs But Using The Penny Dreadful Versions As Well Cus I Like Them

Hello, So recently I have been really obsessed with 1800s gothic horror literature.

My favorite books are (in order);

1. Frankenstein The Modern Prometheus

2. The Picture Of Dorian Gray

3. The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

4. Dracula

So imagine my fucking excitement when I heard there was a show that used THOSE EXACT FOUR BOOKS!!!!

Anyway I thought I'd take the time to talk about my favorite characters from the books/show and hcs I have for them all.

Now massive Trigger Warning for some ableism/sanism from the victorian era but also current day, and also queermisia.

All of these characters are canon ND I believe based off of their canon "madness" and I also believe they were all queer men.

----

Victor Frankenstein

Victor is a trans man you must understand this. He literally has postpartum depression in the book. He is also forced into an arranged marriage with a woman but has so much more chemistry with his best friend Henry Clerval. I think he's gay and his love for both Elizabeth and Lilly are just comphet. (He loves Elizabeth like a sister tho).

Victor is also disabled in the book. In Penny Dreadful he also has asthma! I also hc Victor is autistic. In the book he has a special interest in alchemy and science. He info dumps about poetry and clocks a lot in Penny Dreadful lmao. He's also just awkward like me fr fr. There was also a rlly funny scene in Penny Dreadful where everyone noticed this one character was a trans woman and made a "face" of surprise. Victor never did because honestly I don't think he fucking noticed. Which made me laugh because I didn't either.

Dorian Gray

This man is just me sometimes and I kinda hate it. Definitely has BPD. He treats life as a fantasy and has a hard time applying reality to reality. He also will love you one second and can hate you so passionately the next. Henry Wotton is most definitely his favorite person. There's also an entire chapter in the book dedicated to talking about his hyperfixations. Dorian is also bisexual! He falls in love with a few women in the book and Penny Dreadful. But also many men! Oscar Wilde was gay and put a lot of himself into Dorian lmao.

Henry Jekyll

Look the guy with daddy issues. Seriously out of all the things they chose to adapt for Penny Dreadful this made me laugh the most (in a good way). It's a random throwaway line in the book but I'm glad they kept it because his father leads to Henry's toxic mindset. Henry feels the need to be respectful in high society and not indulge his "indecent" thoughts. These thoughts include things like murder but also homosexual desires. The man is gay, love that for him. Don't let the musical fool you. I think his other violent thoughts come from OCD intrusive thoughts. As a median system I do also relate to the duality he feels. But I also would be careful ever putting a plural reading on Jekyll and Hyde for obvious reasons.

Robert Montague Renfield

Oh Renfield so much to say about you my man. (This is where that TW comes in handy)

Ok so the R.M. of his name standing for "Robert Montague" is ONLY from the new 2023 movie "Renfield". Renfield never had a first name because Bram Stoker was an ableist dick who saw Renfield as less than human for his mental illness. So out of spite of him and love for Renfield I hc his name to be Robert in all versions. This isn't to praise the new movie for its handle on mental illness though. While I absolutely adore the movie and it's camp and message I can't look past the ableism. It constantly demonizes NPD and for the topic of our discussion writes out Robert's mental illness. Robert in the book has psychosis and periods of mania and depression. Honestly I'll have to reread his sections of the book soon and see if I change my opinion because I had a hard time thinking of a label for him. Anyway I think he has Bipolar! But this is why I prefer Penny Dreadful over Renfield 2023 for the character. He gets to be mentally ill and still do a good thing and be just like everyone else in the show (not good or bad, just gray). On the topic of Renfield 2023 again I also think they (Drac and Ren) are ex lovers lmao, I mean it's literally framed like that they just don't have the balls to say it. I now just read every version like this. So yes another Bi king! Wow this ended up mainly being about Renfield whoops.

----

So yeah as you can see I really like the books and Penny Dreadful. I loved that Penny Dreadful wasn't scared to make its characters ND coded like a certain someone *cough* Renfield 2023 *cough* and be faithful to the OGs!

Anyway I'm not a medical professional lmao, I've just researched a lot of stuff trying to figure out my own problems and it's also smth I take an interest in. The queer stuff I am a professional tho /j.

Was this post messy? Oh yeah, wouldn't have it any other way.

[boylikeanangel]

adhd anon here 1) your experience with adhd things that are dismissed in women so they go undiagnosed for a long time 2) rejection sensitive dysphoria!!! i just read about it and started to cry 3) what did you think about your mental health before you were diagnosed like what diagnosis you had for yourself unofficially i always had my eyes on anxiety but now i suspect something else i wonder what that is 4) hyper!!!!fixations!!!!! please and thank you

1) from what admittedly little I've read on it, ADHD tends to go undiagnosed in women (counting myself as a woman here because like even tho I'm nb I've been socialised and treated as female my entire life for obvious reasons) because it tends to manifest verbally rather than in physical behaviour. girls with ADHD tend to be excessively talkative which is often overlooked since ADHD is most commonly recognised through hyperactive body language and restlessness. A kid with ADHD manifesting in not being able to sit still is much more likely to get diagnosed than a kid whose ADHD manifests in them talking too much, which was the case with me. I haven't really looked into this side of it too much because my struggles relating to like. It taking so long to get me diagnosed wasn't because of my gender but because of the fact that I was a "gifted" kid. ADHD is seen as an intellectual disorder rather than what it actually is, which is a developmental disorder, so the general opinion is that ADHD = stupid, and someone like me, who is just overall very intelligent and always excelled in school when I was younger, couldn't possibly have ADHD. The fact that I was intelligent allowed me to fly under the radar until around GCSE's (16 years old for those who don't know) because school work didn't require much concentration. But when it got to exams and I actually had to put real effort in and do work past the six allotted hours a day and take the initiative to voluntarily learn and produce work, combined with the fact that I was able to breeze through 12 years of school without having to learn how to revise and study properly, the realisation that there was something wrong hit me hard and fast and I was forced to confront something that I simply hadn't had to think about earlier on. My lack of diagnosis wasn't necessarily caused by the fact that my ADHD manifested early on in my life in a way that was overlooked; it was mostly caused by not having to consider I may have a learning disability until I was expected to take my learning past a point that could be completed and set aside quickly and easily with minimal concentration involved.

2) (I'm gonna talk about the pre-diagnosis before RSD because it kinda feeds into that nicely) I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 12, and while I definitely think I was suffering from what the professionals call "low mood" at the time that was unaffected by my ADHD, I don't believe that those two things, at least now, exist separately from it. ADHD is often diagnosed as anxiety and/or depression, especially in teenagers and young adults, because the inability to concentrate and commit to anything is attributed to the lethargy and apathy of depression, and the rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is attributed to the paranoia and forced asocial behaviour of anxiety. It's understandable considering the stigma around ADHD being "a child's disorder" that a lot of people with ADHD are labelled with depression and anxiety, but it can be so harmful to those who are misdiagnosed, simply for the reason that anxiety and depression are "temporary" issues. You can get therapy to fix depression and anxiety. You can learn it out of you. It takes time, but it's possible. That's not the case with ADHD. You can't CBT the ADHD away. It's something you're stuck with for life, and mislabelling the symptoms of ADHD as disorders that you can fix gives you false hope that one day, if you try really really hard, all of this will go away and you'll just be "normal" again and everything will click into place. I was failing all of my subjects, but I convinced myself that this inability to work through it was just a barrier I could overcome if I worked at it, because it was caused by depression, so eventually I would feel better and it would go away and I'd be able to magically fix my grades. But ADHD doesn't work like that. You can't prevent it; you can only learn coping mechanisms. The realisation that my inability to perform to the standards expected of me because I could just Not Do What Was Being Asked Of Me, even simple things like a worksheet or a research task, was not something I could just power through, brought about the realisation that the path I'd set out for myself of getting qualifications, going to university, getting a degree, etc. was impossible because the kind of things that were expected of me were things ADHD would not allow me to do, which was and still is crushing, and I've basically been forced to have to rethink. My entire future. And that fucking sucks. And all it comes down to really is that I wish I'd been diagnosed sooner. (I'd like to talk about this more in depth at a later date but this post is already so long so I'm just gonna leave it here. Basically: if you've been diagnosed with depression or anxiety but you suspect you may have ADHD, please assess your symptoms and see which they fit into best. You may have been misdiagnosed. It'll save you a lot of time and stress.)

3) RSD!!!!! IT'S NOT FUN!!!! I don't wanna talk about this too much because it just makes me sad but yeah I had no idea this was a thing until one of my friends with ADHD pointed it out to me and it was like the mist cleared and for the first time I saw clearly what the fuck had been going on with my stupid brain for the last however many years. RSD fucking sucks man. I've lost friends over it. I've missed out on a lot of experiences because of it. If you have been diagnosed with anxiety but you suspect you have ADHD, I am BEGGING you to read up on RSD. It's a very specific type of anxiety exclusive to ADHD and it definitely called me out more than once.

4) (I cant do much more of this because my head is killing me but I'm trying my best ok) hyperfixations!!!!! they rule my life!!!!!! and every single one is bigger than the last!!! every single time I get a new hyperfixation I'm like "I'll never care about anything else as much as I care about this" and then six months later I CARE ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE MORE. IT'S NEVERENDING. ADHD brains are wired to think about one thing All The Fucking Time, so everything makes me think of good omens. just like everything made me think of pacific rim this time last year. everything can be related to the hyperfixation. there are no exceptions. looking back on my childhood I definitely had a lot of hyperfixations that went unchecked, like the one with the hunger games when I was 11 where I would force my friends to play pretend games where we murdered each other in the fields behind our houses.....that and like. dinosaurs. basically every year or so I reshape my entire personality around a new obsession. I cannot just Enjoy things. I must Become them. and no one else gets it!!! NO ONE ELSE GETS IT. I get made fun of a lot by people around me for getting so excited and emotional all the time over seemingly tiny little things, which in turn plays into the RSD (ADHD is its own worst enemy for fucking real), which is why I enjoy being here so much. because like....everyone else is exactly the same. and I'm really thankful to have found people who feel things as strongly and care as much as I do. so....thanks for that everyone

if you want me to talk about anything else or go into more detail I would be very happy to but unfortunately it is 2am and I have a splitting headache and also I've typed nonstop for about an hour now and that's more than the stupid hyper dumbass idiot brain usually allows and now I'm exhausted lmao....but thank you for taking interest in this and I hope this. idk. helps in some way??? gn

[indeego]

Vent #1

I go to a school where our suites have 2 rooms, 2 people each (usually 3 in one room, but then covid happened). So my roommate, the one I actually share a space with, is sometimes hard to deal with.

We had to take a little personality quiz to be matched with someone, like how messy are you, are you a night owl, etc etc. I think I’m kind of half and half with neatness. I’m not perfect, but I usually leave my messes out of sight/under the bed if I have them. Well, when I met my roommate I thought they would be similar, but no. They flat out told me they lied on the form because they were embarrassed to admit how messy they were or something. Like, bruh. No one is using that to judge you, they’re using it to match you with a good roommate to live with, i.e. someone else who’s messy and won’t mind living in it. It’s all on their side which is good, but there’s so much old food wrappers and cans, and one time a whole ass pizza sat in our room for 3 days. They never do their chores (but to be fair, I’m not so great at keeping up with mine either), never takes out the trash in our bathroom, never replaces the toilet roll, uses a shit ton of said toilet paper as well as q-tips, and I pay to replace all of them. They even told me to my face that they are never gonna take out the garbage from our bathroom, and that if he tried to help with the main room garbage they’d throw up. Me too bitch, I nearly throw up doing it cause we’re all nasty but it has to be done!! Smaller detail but they also use a shit ton of ketchup and most of it gets wasted and thrown away and like fdjklfdsjfskld just make a smaller pile and get more if you need it it’s not that hard. They also planned bringing their dog here at some point this year without consulting me at all, and expects us all to help out with her. They even said “so picking up dog poop makes me wanna puke” and then looked at me all expectantly like I was gonna let out and clean up after THEIR DOG. I straight up had to say I wasn’t gonna pick up their dog’s shit. I can’t take her for walks, I can’t play with her, I’m too busy trying to hold myself together and keep up with school work. I got so stressed out last semester with finals, we all did, and you want to add a dog on top of that??? Another small detail, they are constantly using nasal spray. I get it, you gotta use it to breathe sometimes, but I have never once seen them blow their nose. Not once in the many months of living with them. Just the constant sniffle sniffle sniff sniff sniffle sniffle I’m gonna SCREAM! JUST BLOW YOUR NOSE!!!! Honestly I’m kinda pissed that I could have gotten a different roommate.

Now, part of the lack of motivation with chores and stuff is because they have a lot of mental health issues. Severe depression, anxiety, ptsd, suicidal tendencies, etc. They mentioned to me that they had been in psych wards before for this it got so bad. Now I myself have definitely had a history with poor mental health. It was bad for a really long time, I even got close to a suicide attempt once. I hated myself in every possible aspect, but now I’m finally starting to love myself. I’ve made definite progress, even if it’s not perfect, and I’m really proud of myself for that. But part of that is I stopped making depressing and self deprecating jokes, and turned to more positive ones. I stopped saying I was stupid or garbage or whatever, now I’m like “I’m cool and sexy and powerful actually” and it’s been great. My roommate however, is still in that headspace of self deprecation and self hate and I think it’s starting to rub off on me. I’ve caught myself saying I was stupid more than a few times, and generally my mood has gotten worse over this school year. And just the other week, my roommates depression meds ran out, and Walgreens wouldn’t give them a refill (Walgreens in general has been so shitty to this whole household lately like fuck you Walgreens). This meant they had to go cold turkey for 5 days, and slowly they got more moody and upset and depressed (also tangent, I know they have phone anxiety but that can’t be a catch all excuse all the time. They never call before their prescription runs out, and that’s why they have to go days without it. Then they go through a whole spiral for like a week and I’m just thinking “what did you expect to happen, that more drugs would just instantly appear?” I have anxiety about phone calls too, that’s why I have to write a script out before I do certain phone calls, maybe try that). They were constantly saying that they wanted to die, and all I could offer was a “please don’t do that” and suggest taking a shower, drinking some water, or eating a proper meal. It got so bad that they woke me up in the afternoon saying I needed to drive with them to the hospital because their therapist said it was that, or he’d call the cops to escort them. I spent my entire afternoon at a hospital with them, feeling very uncomfortable with the situation. I now have the job of locking their pills and sharp objects in my nightstand drawer so they don’t kill themselves. I feel like I’m the only thing keeping them from committing suicide, and I already got a lot of trauma from that with my mom, I don’t want history repeating itself with my roommate. I don’t want to fear that I’ll wake up and find their corpse, or that I’ll hear them overdosing from the room over and have to call an ambulance. I thought things would get better after the hospital gave them a month refill of their meds, but things still aren’t improving. They keep saying “what if I just killed myself,” “what if I just die,” “what if I just jump out the window,” “I wanna kill myself” and it makes me so feel so uncomfortable and bad, like if I say the wrong thing I’ll set them off or be responsible for making their mood worsen. I know they can’t control that their brain doesn’t produce what it needs to, but I don’t want to be responsible for them and their life. But I have to pretend to be ok with all of this because they don’t have any other option.

Related to that, they also mentioned how they’ve never really had any real friends before (in person at least), and that it’s been really nice to have the rest of us with them and not hate them. But I sometimes don’t enjoy living with them at all. They’ve told me how they had a poor childhood with no friends, and they feel like all their friends eventually stop talking to them and leave them, and it makes me feel guilty for wanting to do the same thing. They think it means they’re too annoying to deal with (which I mean they’re annoying sometimes but I can deal for now), but I feel like it’s more because they’re kind of a huge ball of negativity and sudden mood swings. I’d feel bad just totally ditching them, but I honestly don’t think it’s good for my mental health to be dealing with them and living with them.

Something else is that they are really into Critical Role. Like, mega obsessed with it. I understand it’s probably a hyperfixation and a comfort show, but they’re so invested that when something bad happens in the show it really impacts their mood. Like, they got genuinely really angry and slammed the door of our room when a character almost died. They lay on the floor for nearly 20 minutes after an episode when something bad happens. They also scream so goddamn loud. They’re in our room with the door closed but that does nothing to muffle the sound. So many loud yells and screams and shouting it makes me want to punch a wall. And the fact that the show goes until midnight or later so our room is just occupied until then. Sometimes I want to go to sleep at a decent hour, or I’m just tired, but I don’t want to make them go into the main room because then ALL of us will hear them and no one wins. They also have put so much of their mental wellbeing on if Liam O’Brien likes their fanart or not. They have said “if Liam doesn’t like this fanart I’m gonna kill myself” like, he’s a busy real life adult man who doesn’t have time to sift through every piece of fanart that comes his way. Sure it might happen, but if it doesn’t then tough luck, you gotta move on. You can’t hinge your entire mental wellbeing on a stranger giving you a like on twitter.

I know that a good option for me would probably be to request a new roommate or something, but I don’t know how that would work. I really like the other two, even if I also have small things I dislike, it’s nothing like this level. I don’t know, if anyone out there sees this and has some advice I’d appreciate it.