#real talk i have been trying to get an adhd diagnosis for like 5 years

[okcassin]

Hiii I'm alive! Here, have a work in progress for a piece I'm really excited about!! Sorry about the lack of art lately, my brain has not been easy on me 😅 but I would like to tentatively get back to sharing stuff and having an online presence again.

Thanks everyone for ur patience (*´▽｀)

[2hoothoots]

So I was going through your blog (again) and found some of your stuff mentions fsau Raz having ADHD, as somebody with adhd I’m intrigued, may I have some of those headcanons (canons??) related to that? Also, I would give “a penny for your thoughts” but I’m out of pennies, so here’s various images of a drawing of ur blorbo I put next to my animals, note that a rock had to be added in one picture to keep him from flying away (BONUS: his now permanent place with the wifi guardian frog)

NOTHING brings me more joy than seeing physical drawings of these guys, like, out and about. in situations. thank you for this gift, and ALSO for the great ask because it's a perfect chance to ramble

so first of all, canon Raz having ADHD is very real to me. he's constantly fidgeting and moving around, getting distracted by sidequests and scavenger hunt objectives, always talking to himself out loud, gotta write everything down so he remembers it because there's so much to DO!, running away from home because his dad yelled at him one time and now Raz assumes he must hate him forever... i could go on, but i think there's a lot of room for interpretation there!

in my headcanon, he never got diagnosed as a kid. maybe there were some notes about it in his reports each year, sure - but a little hyperactivity and distractability never seemed to slow him down. he excelled in lessons and on missions, and when he was with his family their performances gave him something to focus that energy into. it was only really when he turned 18 and graduated to a full agent that the cracks started to show.

because there's a big difference between the responsibilities you have as a minor, and the responsibilities you have as an 18-year-old living away from home! one who's expected to cook and clean for themselves, and take care of adult life stuff, and also work the 9-to-5 office job he's just graduated into that involves sitting in front of a computer and write reports all day.

short-term, he found he could get himself to power through a deadline with energy drinks and psi-pops (a lot of psi-pops...)

long-term, something had to give. he was working himself to exhaustion, constantly stressed, swinging between days spent staring at his computer screen doing nothing and all-nighters desperately trying to finish his paperwork before the deadline. it just didn't make any sense to him. he'd finally started his job as a Psychonaut, he was living independently like he'd always dreamed, he'd gotten top surgery after planning it for so long. he should have everything he ever wanted. why wasn't he happy?

following a deep post-surgical depression, about a month before his 19th birthday Raz was living out of his car, couch-surfing or sleeping in his office. he got kicked out of his apartment after falling behind on bills and rent. it wasn't that he didn't have the money, it was all just too much for him to stay on top of.

he'd probably have stayed in that misery hole for a lot longer if Frazie hadn't marched into his life and demanded he let her help him move into a new place, or she was telling mom that he was homeless. together, they sorted through all of his possessions from the last place - everything that had been hastily shoved in his car, or tossed in a box in his office, piled in a heap that was giving him anxiety even looking at it.

things do get better for him from there.

when he eventually explains things to Hollis, she gently suggests that he should get a roommate. he ends up moving in with Phoebe, and they become pretty good friends after a couple months! something about having another person around to help do the chores and wash the dishes and share the space helps, even if it takes him a while to admit it.

he gets his ADHD diagnosis, and finding the exact right medication and dose is a journey he's still on years later - but they're a huge help in getting him to actually knuckle down and finish his work on time. and the whole thing ends up being a chance for him to take a step back and really think about what he wants to do with his life. he'd always assumed that being a Psychonaut was his dream, but he'd never really reckoned with what that dream would look like before.

in the end, he sticks with it, but also decides to follow Lili's example in branching out. he applies to study a part-time Bachelor's in Psychology on a remote course, and gets accepted. juggling missions and paperwork and study and relationships (because the whole thing made him realise he also wasn't setting aside any time for himself, and wow, dating is a thing) is a lot - but he manages to figure it out, day by day.

(Lili comes back to the Psychonauts after graduating. she and Raz have both changed a lot over those four years, but on their first mission together they hit it off like a house on fire - and the rest is history!)

[itsaspectrumcomic]

hi im really sorry to bother you, and obvs you dont need to answer this at all im just some internet guy lol but do you think i could get some advice?

so ive been diagnosed with autism for like, 5 years (was diagnosed p late, in comparison to others) and im beginning to have some real goddamn big suspicions that i Also have adhd (because. yaknow. the gift that keeps on giving yk? lol). i have a lot of really major issues with executive dysfunction that is directly impacting schoolwork and also a lot of stuff in my life, generally. ive also got a lot of memory issues nd junk

and the thing is; ive got a therapist, but due to a whole slew of things im really scared to like, bring this up with her yk? and, like, im a minor so i cant exactly just seek it out myself yk? and i cant really talk to my parents about it because my mom is a very specific kind of vaguely ableist and my dad generally just isnt involved with that whole section of my being, yk? like, he doesnt manage any of my therapy, aside from bringing me to appointments when my mother isnt available.

and like, ive brought certain things UP to my therapist before and it went mostly ok, aside from one pretty distressing misunderstanding but it feels different for this one because i really do need medication for this, i feel. and thats a whole thing with my mother specifically, since at the start of the whole diagnosis process she outright refused the idea of medication and like. idk man, im so super sorry to write a whole bullshit essay when you're literally just vibing but yk. idk who else to ask lol, and you seem like you know what youre doing i guess?

real sorry. thanks in advance. insert other applicable signoff message here

I'm sorry you're struggling with this. Your therapist should be someone you can talk to about things like this but I understand being anxious about it. Are you afraid to bring it up because she's said ableist/anti-adhd stuff in the past or you have reason to suspect she won't help? If that's the case I really recommend trying to get a different therapist if you can. You deserve a therapist you feel safe sharing things like this with.

If it's impacting schoolwork it might be worth talking to your teachers to see if there's any additional support you can get from them. You don't have to tell them you suspect ADHD if you don't want to, you can just tell them you've been struggling with certain aspects of school and hopefully they can help. School is hard for lots of people so know you're not alone.

It might be different where you live, but in the UK you're able to make your own doctors appointments if you're over 16 so asking a doctor about getting a referral for a diagnosis/medication could be an option as well. Although waiting lists for that are incredibly long at the moment - I've personally been waiting nearly a year just to get an appointment 🙃

In the meantime, have you heard of How to ADHD on YouTube? Her channel has lots of videos with advice and various discussions about living with ADHD which you might find helpful.

Sorry I don't know if that helped much but I hope you're able to get support soon!

[rouge-fauna]

rsd is both common in adhd and autism also disliking self diagnosed people is weird. Not sure if you are aware of this but the dsm-5 is flawed for instance until 2014, professional psychologists and psychiatrists believed adhd couldn’t even be diagnosed if someone had autism and vice versa, psychologists didn’t believe dyscalculia was a thing. There was no need to imply that someone with an official autism and adhd diagnosis was misinformed. I dealt with being called slurs for years, I don’t rlly mind if people nowadays find adhd and autism as a silly fun thing because when I was a kid, I was hated for being autistic and autism was never talked about except in a neg way. The silly memes about it are by autistics themselves. And, it’s a good thing that more people are figuring out traits connected to autism and adhd that psychologists hadn’t figured out yet till recent. Autism or adhd is not a one size fits all, it’s different for everyone that has either, or both a fact that even psychologists will agree with.

[context]

I mean no profession is perfect, I wasn’t diagnosed till I was 20, despite seeing various therapists and stuff since I was 14, so especially psychology as everyone’s brain is different. But I have to base my information from somewhere and I’d rather trust more scholarly sources with years of research and experience, and real people who work in the field, then just any old information on the internet. But anyways, and no shade to self diagnosis either, I’m so happy if people can find some answers and community and stuff like that. What I’m concerned about is what has happened to OCD and ADD and things taken to the point of a stereotype norm, with Autism just becoming anyone who has an obsession with something obscure, ADHD becoming anyone who can’t focus, Anxiety Disorders becoming anyone who’s stressed… etc. And that concern is based on my real life friend telling me about how her friends are scrolling through tik toc and relating to something from some video and diagnosing themselves. And as someone who has been working on my mental health for almost a decade, struggling to get through life, it feels very trivializing for someone to say oh because they like anime they are autistic (that was what one of her friends thought). Or it becoming they are dealing with anxiety and stress they have an anxiety disorder or because they are depressed they have depression. Because anxiety disorder for me means multiple anxiety attacks a week, depression for me means struggling to get out of bed, autism to me means working everyday in professional clothes at the office is torture, adhd to me means trying to do one thing then starting five others and completing none of them or just struggling to stay awake - just some really really broad strokes of things… For someone to say they deal with anxiety when they are just stressed about a test, doesn’t feel very good when I’m trying not to have another anxiety attack… like yes mental illness looks different, the brain is different in everyone and I’m glad we are continuing to grow and build our knowledge. What I worry about is our struggle becoming glossed over, as someone who for almost my entire life has had it invalidated… and like I also said in my statement, it wasn’t really an opinion or take or stance, just an observation I had recently.

It sounds like you’ve had it rough, I’m sorry people have been cruel to you and I’m happy to know that society becoming more open and such has helped you. I can totally see why. For me, on the opposite end, I was told my whole life that I was not enough, that I needed to just get over it, that I just needed to stop being sad or negative, to stop being dramatic… etc I was told it was a failure of me as a person when as it turns out there was actually a lot of factors out of my control the whole time. So that’s where I’m coming from, I think both sides and things can be true. And I am blessed to have been diagnosed in a time when I am not surrounded by cruel kids and when society is becoming more educated in it.

Of course, I want other people to find that same peace, but I also don’t want us to flip the other way and be like well if everyone is autistic then your struggles aren’t real. Hopefully that makes sense. I don’t mean to hate or judge self diagnosis, I’m actually more so encouraging of it, as I have suggested to multiple friends that they should investigate and see if they find it to be true. But I do hope people do due diligence when doing so if that makes sense. And that’s from a place that, again, has seen this happen.

Per usual both things can be true. And of course mental illness looks different in people, I mean I wasn’t diagnosed till I was older and even my doctors disagreed at first, then now I often get people shocked when I tell them. So trust me this is not be trying to say it looks the same by any means.

As far as RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) goes, I talked to the therapists I know about it and none of them heard about it, so as far as I can tell it isn’t a recognized diagnosis. Now that doesn’t mean it isn’t real or the experiences of people claiming RSD aren’t real, that’s more so me saying that to me RSD doesn’t need to be a diagnosis or term because I’m pretty sure a lot of people feel the same way about rejection, especially neurodivergent people who have faced so much. It’s not me saying the struggle isn’t real, I certainly qualify, it’s me saying that it’s more so a symptom of a larger issue and one that doesn’t seem to to me to be extreme or unreasonable if that makes sense. If not, that’s fine I’m no psychologist so I’m not going to argue about it. This is just my perspective and fears. I think there a some good point on either end and like all things it’s complicated.

[dear--charlie]

Dear Charlie,

It's been a while. A big while. I don't remember the last time I wrote to you and as much as I wish I could say I am happy to see you, I'm really not. It's been a rough two years. Beatuiful years in which I have made friends in a way I never thought I could, but at the same time I feel like I will never get myself out of this whole I've been stuck in ever since the first time I wrote to you. I think that's 6 years ago. I am 24. I am finishing my masters degree and writing my thesis and I have no idea what I want to do next. What I wanted to do, what had been so clear to me all my life, suddenly seems like something I don't want anymore. I wanted to be a teacher. That life feels as far back as the times I felt admiration rather than second hand embarrassment when looking at my father.  If I do a PhD, then it's only because I want to prove to myself that I am capable of doing it, it's because my OCD tells me that I will not, cannot have a happy life if I don't finish school. And finishing school means PhD. From preschool to primary school to bacherlor's to master's...the missing piece of the puzzle would be a PhD. It's only logical, no? But do I want it? I don't know. Then again, I really don't know what I want anymore. I feel like over the past years I have lost touch with who I am, what I want, where I belong and what the future holds.  Then again, if I don't do a PhD, what else would I do? Go teach? Not sure? I'd like to work at a library. But I don't have the degree. But would I really want that? Or have books become my identity the way dance was, even though by now I feel like throwing up every time I see words written on paper, and the dance thing is more of a hobby than anything I would ever have wanted it to be.  I live at home again. With my parents. They are making so much noise right now that I can't sleep. I think they forgot that I live here and that I really don't want to hear them having the night of their lives.  What do I want? I don't know.

Either way, I am so anxious about my thesis that I don't sleep most nights and that I work all day, but I hate it, so I don't do it well, I'm not productive enough. My friend has ADHD and recently shifted her meds and she left me some of hers, and they help me focus. They calm the brain fog but I don't want to abuse the medicine. I should probably just get myself a diagnosis, but by now I don't even know what I have or don't have or might have. It might be ADHD but then my brain would feel foggier, wouldn't it? It might be depression? It might be anxiety? I might be somewhere on the spectrum? I might have OCD? It might be all of them or nothing, some more or some less. I'm scared. I want to know. But I don't, because ignoring it makes it disappear, tells me it's not as bad and not as real and that I am completely normal. A diagnosis would mean the demons are real. And that there might be ways to tame them. But who am I without the dark and jittery mind that sees patterns where there are none.  I lost touch with myself and my surroundings. I feel detached from the friends I had here and since moving back to where my parents live I feel estranged from my own home. I miss my friends, the ones I made in the last 2 years. I miss the smiling eyes of 4 year old me, the dreams, the ambitions. It's all gone.  I feel like I've settled for where I am and moving on is scary. I idolise people after people, try to find my community but time after time I fuck up. When I have to talk to somebody about something other than academics my mind shuts down. Except for commenting on the weather I am uncapable of smalltalk. I'm just quiet. And everybody feels awkward. And I notice. But I don't know what to say or how to act or where to look. 1 on 1 conversations scare me and in a group I feel uncomfortable. And I feel lonely by myself. It's so tricky. And I managed to make friends who for some weird reason like me, but they live far away and I've been there before. 5 years and it changes, 6 and it's over. You cannot stay this close somebody you don't share a life with anymore. Not like this.

I feel like I'm dying alive. Those thoughts come more and more often.  And then there are all the bans. The don't say gay bills in America, some Germans praising the approach, there are all the hurdles of a queer life that I am aware of. The not holding hands, the questions, the looks. I would love to say I don't care, that I am proud and don't give a shit about what people think. And honestly, I don't. But I am sacred. That they will hurt me. That instead of throwing comments at me and insulting me with the worst of words (because that has happened a lot) they start throwing stones and hurting me or A and I don't want that.  I feel like I want to hide away. From myself, from the world, from life, from them.  I long for her to reciprocate my feelings. She calls me a friend. Says I remind her so much of herself. I feel like we are that, friends I mean. And she reminds me of the things I could be if I were a little more like her. We are so similar and yet we are so different. She is the things I strive to reach but don't know how to. I don't want to disappoint her. I dreamt about her. About the disappointment. She is who she is and I am who I am and we are in a setting where the word "friendship" comes with power imbalance and hierarchy and that is why our weekly calls happen during her working hours most days. We cannot cross that line. Questions would pop up. And things would get weird. But I want more. I want friendship without that boarder, without the working hours, without the censoring ourselves and weighing our words trying to keep a line of professionalism that remains on paper but has long dissolved. I want to erase it. But I cannot. Because she grades me. And I am a student. And that's not how those things work. She told me so far she avoided grading me as far as she could because she is biased. In a good way and yet... biased. Now she has to grade me. Sometimes there are text messages instead of emails. Our "professional" talks resemble coffee dates more than anything else. But we have to keep the guise. So I stopped answering the texts and she stopped sending them. Back to email.

Back to working hours. Back to, I have an available time slot for a zoom call on Wednesday at 10:30. That's how it has to be but I don't like it. Because it's easy to talk to her and she feels the same. We know things about each other I am sure we both don't tell random colleagues. But oh well. It has to be like this. One more thing that has to be the way it is and that makes me miserable. I long for connection. It's so hard for me to build it. With her it was so easy. I have it. But I have to ignore it.  Anyway. This is long. And messy. Like always really. I'm not doing very well. I'm trying. Really. But my thesis subject gets to me and the books I read hold mirrors in my face of past selves that I have tried to forget or overcome or both and it is just being hard. I'll try to stay safe. Say hi to all our common friends please. I don't know who is still here. I hope they are well. And safe. And happy. We'll get there. 

[spicycoffeebean]

If you don't want to answer that's COMPLETELY fine and you can ignore this entirely, but if your comfort zone permits: I happened across your tag and am. curious how someone could use reddit to try and get someone to detransition. Like, do you mean she made a post about it to get people agreeing with her or??

Hi Anon! I'll be honest and say I'm glad somebody took notice enough to actually ask. Because I still refuse to believe it happened.

No! She did not make a Reddit post. She just sent me several posts from r/detrans to get me to detransition.

More below the cut! Idk how long this will be, but cw for transphobia and all around shitty/questionable behavior

For those who don't know (I can't track down the post, but I commented in tags) my own mother (60) has been very actively against my transition (ftm) since I began taking testosterone in November 2021(I have been openly trans and using he/him prns since 2018, so it's not like any of this was "new" information to her) On top of blatant misinformation, my mom tried to source REDDIT, the detransitioner's subreddit to prove that yes, people do detransition. Never once denied her that. My issue here is that no, she did not make a post, she was ~browsing~ the detransitioner subreddit r/detrans to push me to detransition. She was "sourcing" it (I wanna say she said in the same conversation that she doesn't trust sites that have LGBTQ+ flags despite the statistics being very real and very present. I'm an analytics/statistics student.)

I have a million issues with this, but very simply, she is using people's struggles and real trauma to fuel a transphobic agenda to get me to detransition (I was so much happier when I chose to be openly trans let alone when I actually started T last year.) If you actually read the subreddit, 99% of those stories are OP saying "Transitioning did not work for me" but not once do they denounce transitioning. They make it clear that their experiences with it did not work out.

“I talk to detransitioners all of the time” she said “Why don’t you talk to a real trans person?” I asked her “Because I know their story.” is what she said word for word Bitch I’m trans and I don’t know trans people’s stories. I just am trans?? I made it super easy for her. Talk to a doctor or a real trans person. She makes any excuse to NOT DO THIS. A cisgender doctor in California will tell you that you are out right wrong and doing more harm than any good you might see from it.

Less than 1% of people detransition, and the majority of those who detransition ARE STILL UNHAPPY. Even then a handful of people detransition because of society, family, or something simple as healthcare. People are denied healthcare because doctors don't want to provide basic care to a transgender person. (I live in the US where this practice would be illegal) My mother acts like I myself deny that people detransition while she literally won't acknowledge WHY people detransition at all. LGBT clinics are apparently shutting down in the UK, Norway, Sweden etc. Yeah cool cisgender people are losing healthcare too. But apparently that doesn't matter. My brother's(cis) bisexual and he could be denied care if he lived in such a place. I don't think she'd take kindly to that, knowing she was the most supportive when my brother came out well over 10 years ago.

I do not want my story or trauma to be used as fuel for a fire to hurt somebody else. I doubt any of these detransitioners would be happy knowing this either. Their stories are not for my mother to tell

anyway she sends me to college(to study analytics/statistics lol??) and insists I'm brainwashed and need an autism diagnosis(YES, SHE ASKED ME 3 TIMES TO GET ONE. NO I JUST HAVE ADHD. I ASKED DOCTORS FOR 5 YEARS ABT IT LOL)

She's just in denial she spent 1 million usd and 2 years of paperwork on a China doll because "[She] didn't want to try for another son" I was told this my entire childhood and it's haunting me almost every day now.

That's the super dumbed-down version of that Reddit comment. Let alone EVERYTHING ELSE she put me through the last 14 months.

TLDR; She did not make a post to get people to agree with her, she was just taking people's stories and struggles to fuel a hate agenda detransitioners themselves do not agree with (she cannot read.)

[spookybreadstick]

hi hi !!

i havent sent a letter in a while, i've gotten pretty busy doing color guard. do you know what that is? it's quite fun, though less people know about it.

color guard is like rotc, but it's less serious n stuff. it's usually contemporary dance with flags, rifles, and sabers. we work with the marching band !! and no the weapons aren't real, they do hurt though. we tape them up with electrical tape and wear gloves since it can hurt your hands a lot.

we have a show review next week !! that means whatever show we decided to create this year and work on we'll be going to another school to have the judges review our show and give us any criticism n what not.

we even are going to start practice for a new years parade our school has always been performing for for literal decades. it's 5 miles so we really have to build up stamina to do flag work and dance, not to mention memorize and have a good diet for it. since it's a parade it'll be about 1-3 hours long.

it's odd, i'm not used to being busy often or having an actual schedule since i've been depressed since i was young—though i haven't been diagnosed. i'm not diagnosed with anything, i know i said i had adhd and i feel bad for lying. i have a cousin a first cousin with it and i researched it since i wanted to do something in any medical profession or like- therapy at some point. so every single thing i read or research, i have symptoms or can relate far too much. i've been relating to and understanding anything i see about people with adhd or people with adhd explaining it or describing it since i was in elementary. i don't want to self diagnose though, that isn't good, but it sucks being stuck with either being diagnosed but then actually being diagnosed and having my family treat me like some kid.

i don't talk about it often besides with friends though since i don't want people thinking i'm being weird or faking it. i've just been having the symptoms since as long as i can remember so i try and figure it out myself before i decide to go and ask to be diagnosed.

i had the courage to ask my doctor a year ago but i was moving in a week when i asked so i couldn't get an evaluation or be assessed. so when i finally asked, my situation ruined it.

sorry for dumping like that. i got sick recently so i havent been able to be awake much or do anything properly. it's not covid, just a sore throat n lots of congestion. i have to blow my nose every 30 seconds i swear. so i havent been able to tell any friends and stuff about these things.

anyways, daily questions so prepare yourself !! how are you, mentally, physically, and emotionally? anything fun you did recently? have you been taking care of yourself? are you okay, considering the amount of time you took away from tumblr to move n all of that. how's moving been?

that's all for this letter, and i'm sorry if any of the topics i've mentioned aren't very joyous or make anyone get triggered.

– MC

hi MC, it's good to hear from you! so sorry for such a late reply :(

My ex-best friend used to do color guard, so I know of it's existence (she took up the activity at the end of our friendship, so I don't know too much, thanks for filling me in!) It sounds like a lot of work, so I applaud you for that. I don't think I could ever do it lol

self-diagnosis can be a tricky thing because you’re right, it isn’t great to self-diagnose but at the same time I know not everybody has the resources and means to get officially diagnosed. And in my opinion, diagnosis can do a lot of good for a person. I have a math learning disability that I wasn’t diagnosed with until last year. I knew something was wrong but I wasn’t able to get tested for the longest time. It actually hindered me more I think when it hung over my head as some big cloud of “I know something’s wrong with me but I can’t get tested, what if this is all in my head & I’m just making it up for attention, or what if I’m just really dumb and trying to use this an excuse for it’. all that fun self-doubting/spiraling thoughts. But after I got tested and diagnosed with my learning disability for math, it’s like things shifted for me. I had more patience with myself, if that makes sense. I started to treat myself like I would if I was any other person with a math learning disability. Like when those thoughts came to me, I was able to say to myself ‘You know you have a math learning disability and that’s okay, you’re not making it up for attention, and you’re not dumb’. It was a freeing and calming thing for me, so I totally get why it would be the same for you with a self-diagnosis (although I hope you can actually get diagnosed soon for your own sake and mental well-being, I know it’s tough though!) And you know, plenty of people have ADHD and it’s nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed by if you do have it! If anybody treats you differently (which I don’t think they will), then that’s their problem, not yours! 

As for your questions....

1a) I am mentally doing alright. Seasonal depression is coming back, I can feel it in my bones, so that’s always tough

1b) I am physically well, just have a lot of bruising from dancing (I’m part of a dance club, and while learning some new moves I totally wiped out!!) 

1c) I am emotionally good right now! Things have been crazy lately but things are calming down enough for me to take a breather, you know?

2) The fun thing that I did recently was go back to my family’s house and help them decorate for Christmas! 

3) I’ve been trying to take care of myself! I’ve been really enjoying parfaits lately, and I also recently bought some new skin-care products that I’m excited to try out. I am slacking on my vitamins though, so I’ve gotta get that in check! 

4) It was hard for me to take a break to be honest, and I know I’m still not super regular with everything, but the move and classes and everything was a lot harder than I thought. In a good way though, if that makes sense? Like I thought it would be a bad-hard, like I’m lonely and crying all the time and I have all this extra empty time on my hands that I could at least use to work on the blog, but it’s not like that. It’s good-hard, like I have friends and I’m doing activities and I’m staying so busy with general life and such that I don’t have a lot of time for the blog like I thought I would. So it’s good, but also not exactly what I expected?

Thank you for your letter MC! Hope to hear from you soon!

- breadstick 🥖

[queenofallwitches]

an update and primer:

so the last winter was weird. I had a complete breakdown, went into psychiatric hospital for 40 days in total. two seperate times.

learnt a heap of new things, met a tonne of cool people and had amazing conversations and few fights but overcome my own demons by that.

brain speaking-I have a scarred brain stem and neurological disorder is not a mental diagnosis, but a neurological disorder, proven by MRI scan, ADHD.

also damage to my basal ganglia, and prefrontal cortex.

neurological diagnosis means ADHD is not a "mental" health issue, as some believe, rather a neurodevelopment disorder caused by structural differences in the ADHD brain.

other neurodevelopment disorders include: Tourettes, Autism, Cerebal Palsy, Dyslexia and other Motor and Intellectual Disabilities. (Which recieve, in my view, a lot of insight, media information and stigma reduction by the advocacy networks surrounding these types of disability).

Over the last few years Autism has been over everything, I've seen mainstream media cover Tourettes and yet ADHD is still HUGELY misunderstood, misconceived and misrepresented in media, be in from the angle of documentaries, personal insight of a "typical" case, films, tv, and other media.

one of the first things my dr told me was "in females it rarely presents as hyperactive red-cordial OD child"

which is what my mother BELIEVES, that is because I have an adopted cousin with the ADHD dx who was that growing up, but the representation I'm told is also divergent for women with a higher IQ score than the average IQ. I come in around 142 and tested 123 at age 3 when I was unable to focus, pay attention and had severe trauma. I tested 142 in grade 8.

I'll share my experience as a female who is intellectually gifted, with higher IQ than average, and an adhd brain:

I've been told gifted and talented "genius" children are harder to diagnose because the symptoms present differently, we hide it better (camouflage) and our focusing can be "faked" by mediocre efforts of academic success.. this is true, I would do the assignment the Sunday night hours deadline, last minute, or have my parents half do it for me, plagiarise it (fuck I've killed my whole academic career now) copied but changed my words

from old 1970s encyclopaedias I KNEW they couldn't cross reference (I went through 15 years of school never studying doing homework or assignments and still had top grades).

I literally did not listen, and spent my classes planning the end of the world survival strategies with my GT friend who, basically helped me with my calculus and hard fucking maths, which was the ONLY 50 minutes of the day I put attention into my work.

now I'm going to be heading back to full-time study in the coming months, I get anxious as the pressure of a Bachelor level degree, and the pressure it takes me to perform, is enough to break me down. I've been advised it might be wise to start light (like a basic vet style diploma) and then build up, which is logical, but I keep thinking I'm meant to be doing my thesis by now. which is the kind of pressure one gets as a kid who is told repeatedly, "your intelligence is exceedingly the average and you can do ANYTHING you want"

I wanted to be an astronaut, a storm chaser, and an architect, a town planner and then a journalist. I always held to being a "FBI agent" or spy (I wonder why). so when I found psychology is really a blend of all these things, I kinda found a niche in a psych and social science double degree. but I'm thinking my academic career is LIFELONG, and due to the fact I also want to work in my field alongside my many written thesis coming, I'll be in academics for a long time. I may fail a few things, which I have to come to terms with. I do not fail easily, or readily, but I'm a perfectionist type-a academic who will put my whole life on the line to achieve "merit". I get exams, I get assessments, I read journals super-easy, I talk the talk and walk the walk so well psychologists who are at masters level compliment me on my "knowledge".

when it comes to mental health and trauma, I will always have the personal attachment, called lived experience, which will make failure and burnout, 100 percent realistic. I have to boundary up, bootstraps on, and prepare that yes, my personal "bias" will probably be entwined in this.

which is why I'm looking at the social science for the statistics and thesis writing side of things, and the counselling for the trained therapist side. either way, the degree of counselling requires so much self-insight, and then the social-science will back me away from personifying it. the other choice is criminology, which leads to forensic psychology, which is eternally fascinating. my main concern is the pro-pedophile content Ill be up against, which will look at the anatomy of a shoplifter akin to the devil, and leave the pedophile in the DSM-5 dx "paraphilia" box.

I'm not joining or jumping to anything.

either way I've got 2 year of credit, a heap of pathways and a lot of "academic momentum" from all my life being aimed to be "academic powerhouse". I went through my files and found a lot of awards I'd won in my high school, and top place in the competitions we would be entering in. I remember feeling so sad if I had a "credit" vs a distinction or high distinction, only to see now, a credit in university maths in year 9 is a skillset I don't have anymore so, good on me. or a credit in English, or Science at that age was pretty impressive, considering these tests were random and not studied for.

just a general skills assessment only the top 30 kids in the year were to take on a year by year basis and put out to vet from the top universities and taken by other kids in the same grade around the state.

it puts so much focus on my intelligence, because it's primed to be that way, I know that is true. I know I feel good being academically successful and it gives me a feeling of "achievement" but is it really for me?

I also found 2 letters from my local politicians offering me job placement, work experience and I was 1/4 kids in my 10th grade graduation tom get the letter, and due to my behaviour I pissed ALL the idiots who bullied me off. I was "too pretty to be a nerd" "too smart to be pOpUlAr".

so I made a group of misfits, who are all highly intelligent, creative and my group had the ONLY gay male in the school AND THIS IS BEFORE YOU FUCKING RETARDS MADE IT "COOL". he was bullied badly, so fuck you, you fucks claim "liberalism" but I bet you were the type of idiot who bullied guys like him in high school while you pretended to like my chemical romance and fake cut yourselves. I hate you all, forever.

my grade was full of idiots who were fake emo, who left the scene the moment the scene changed to dub-step and club music. I was there, watching you all, like sonny Moore, went from FFTL to that dubstep skrillex shit he started in 2009.

I dated you, hooked up with you and I went to your gigs. I know who was real and who was fake. I met some of you years later and realised the more emotive ones were the less "alternative appearing".

I can say 1/10000 emo guys from the 00s were genuinely Into the music and scene for the right reasons based on my dating history and this can and will be analysed statistically using SPSS one day to prove a lot. I've had too many relationships from each sub-culture and I have had 4-11 males at a time per public "output" of my energy pursue me over life.

I'm not being cocky when I say I have a long line of "suitors" and its banked back about 50 men. it's been a thing I've avoided as it seems to grow based on my body shape, attitude, appearance, so I am currently out of touch with dating scenes, no interest to try that ANYWAY, given the fact that I have had so many LONG TERM relationships ANYWAY. I can't see another one going well, and at this case, I'm living with an ex but we never went on conventional and now our families label this 3 things: "asexual", "polyamorous" and "open relationship". I'm also "bisexual" but this all to humans outside, looks ridiculous on paper. (wild orgies and lots of swinging or some stupid sex magick probably is what J brother literally thinks we do).

bc humans are intrinsically designed to need to label things they don't understand. we share a lease, not a relationship, and fucking polyamorous, I WISH. there are no girl-girl-guy 3 some, or orgies, or sex magic parties.

this has changed the attitude and perception of this "relation' which Is non-romantic, non-sexual. he can date and likely, will, as can I , and I likely won't date.

I would say 14/15 have had ADHD, or other mental illness and or trauma. which means to me, nothing at all.

I think this "open book" non romantic relationship style of "friends and roommates" not sexual.

attachment is misunderstood by others but works well fro my adhd, meaning I'm not expected to marry, or be a wife in any capacity. he is free to do what he wants, as I am, and open communication is a novel frontier I brought into this in the start, and stayed with for the duration. we fight, but I fight with a lot of people in my life over many petty things. also down to my adhd, I believe, I have rejection sensitive dysphoria, which makes me hypersensitive to rejection, perceived or real.

im not sure if this is trauma or adhd or both. but

I have used sexuality as a weapon in many relationships but it cannot or will not be used here, so I have had to resort to uncovering parts of myself which I never knew, which will stay with me even if he decided to marry and wife up in 5 years, which I'm okay and expecting him to do, and I would much rather that then be trapped in a situation where I cannot be that "wife/mother archetype" as I'm too "femme fatal/other-woman/sex-laced seductress and siren" a "FWB, unicorn, drug buddy, hook-up where im a therapist" or "intellectual and cognitive mind-bender work-study obsessed woman".

both at once and many types of human, including one who is a full-time ceremonial magician of 7 years. I will drink, drug, fuck, fight like males and still be more feminine and high maintenance than 89% of women. I grew up a tomboy and don't mind getting into fun, adventure based situations, like hiking, or anything adrenaline, I would only be reluctant to eat weird shit.

I also have many "neurological" issues including ADHD, and trauma which causes a rupture in the average human and I dating.

I'll tell you how many men have said "you are the unicorn" and then realised what that means, I went as far as canvasing the PUA world back in 2014 after reading the game, a book on PUA, which is essentially, pick up artistry, based on NLP and hypnosis. I did this after reading the copy my ex in 2008 handed me before we dated saying "I gave this up for you". it took me years to open the book, buy when I did I truly believed the only way I would fall in love again, was through PUA. that failed in so many ways but gave me a training foundation for men who were candidates for that, I have trained up J, and the way that sounds is BAD. I know, but I got a lot of value myself, I just don't see it how I wanted to see it.

but that was my original intent, and I achieved this he knows that, knew it was happening and evolved for the best self.

I am thinking we can modulate this into a business model for how I was operating in the BDSM world was mainly psychological, not physical.

I get told all of is incredibly intimidating (I am told) to women and men.

I don't really care anymore, because people have always seen this part of me in the wrong way ANYWAY, but I own who I am NOW. which is what I needed ANYWAY. so it cannot be stolen again, and sexual healing has come from abstinence ironically.

I also don't care what or who is trying to tear up my relations, toxic or not toxic, all people around me will be on a healing journey by default, or cut out of my life, for I am radiating that energy so brightly its impossible NOT to feel that pull.

I will drag your shadows into the light, and make your secrets spin from your lips into my consciousness. its not what I do but its what is design.

I make your weaknesses mountains to climb over. you cannot hide from these in my presence, I won't be this controlling or obsessive female who wants 24-7 attention as I have a life full of meaning without love or sex. I don't want to be wined, dined or expensively gifted, unless specially requested.

I don't want love letters or romantic declarations, this isn't some femnazi bullshit, but it triggers me. I appreciate the efforts and won't make you feel bad about your insecurities, for mine are probably 30 x more pronounced.

I appreciate small things, that most males won't or don't know how to do. like remembering things I've said and being thoughtful. or knowing my silence isn't personal, or a game, but a protective wall. I've had songs sung too me, guitars played, songs written, or things made in ways that are heartfelt. but I've always had them used against me too. so it is the context. I value time, energy, conversations of depth and reciprocal exchange. I also value trauma understanding, my alters and fragments being accepted and valued as me as a whole and a person who is not afraid, or scared of stupid stuff like sensitivity, emotions, feelings as raw as my own. men feel intensely too, lol.

but will only give oral sex 100 times before I don't recieve it, I can communicate now so that wouldn't happen.

but I won't be a bitch about this stuff. I am extremely feminine and care in ways other people, do not, I forget nothing people tell me, so it can be a reward or reverse uno card pull in a fight, but I am not evil or deviant in my relations. I react, depending on how you treat me. I don't need your money, or providing source of income to be okay as I am my own queen, however sharing resources is okay to build something. I don't need to be seduced, but will need to be shown a person is trustworthy.

few cross that.

that will always be time-endurance and testing. there are ground rules I don't play with, or play games. or like being forced or forged into something I'm not. I know abusive and I know safe, and I am a psychology expert, trained psychotherapist and study humans for fun, so I'll always be analysing things.

and I know red flags and I know ego, I know how to placate and please and pleasure, but will only do so, for a bigger and better reason than the mere act of seduction. which is without value and transactional to someone like me, I won't lie.

and I know every tactic in the book, for the book was written by someone like me, many lives ago, and my karma is being burnt for that book.

in terms of walls, I have many, may it be called a maze. or labrnyth.

I will teach you things you never thought you'd know, and change your life in ways you won't ever be able to go back to before. I will blow your mind, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, on all levels, and I'll make your friends and family love me.

I'll bring your walls down and you won't be able to understand this, because you don't understand me, and thats ok.

but I'll always understanding you and make your life better because thats what I do anyway, and people talk to me about things I will never share, as I keep secrets. I am jealous, of everything but, only because I am attached in a disorganised way, and working on that.(I won't even mention how man women or men don't know basic psychology of themselves). I also am a therapist , for my friends and family too.i should not be , but I am. I care, I listen, If you think I'm not listening, I'm still listening. sometimes I interrupt, because I have ADHD and I am horrible at resolute planning, or being "normal". but I don't want to be normal anyway. I need you to recognise and understand my shit, for that is what I do for everyone in my life, and I have helped more than I receive.

I'll probably accidentally give you therapy, but thats fine, because you will uncover your depths and find meaning in this. it's not something that goes bad unless you are fundamentally, evil, even the most abusive relationship I was in, was benefited from this process. yes he's still narcissistic, but he is self-aware. and did I benefit, never, just know the anatomy of self-proclaimed narc and I still can't hate him. will get my civil claim one day.

I will fuck your mind without meaning too. but thats because I fuck my own mind. but the meaning is made in the man- some find this highly offensive or personal (its not). I fuck minds by my own overthinking, or over perception on many levels of reality. so join the ride, or don't come along at all. because once the rollercoaster is in motion, I have no control of what may or may not happen. it's purely experimental.

I am experimental.

and the women who are judging me, are not any better.

look within, and shut the fuck up. self-improve and quit this jealous divide and conquer bitchiness. I HATE gossip, bitches, snitches and fakers.

I look to other women who are intellectually, physically and spiritually "individual". and find value in superior status to my own, which is something my narcissistic ex taught me.

I look for mentors, and teachers and people who will teach me how to improve myself, which I am fearful to reconnect after something is amazing and I can't give anything back of positive value. I am sorry I am working on that.

I won't devalue those below me, but I also need to be mutually benefiting from a relationship.

I dont drag people down, I may disappear if I feel I am doing this by mistake. I am flakey as fuck, and sorry for that. its anxiety and lack of perfectionism, so I am wrong and bad for this. I can change. will change.

if you can find value with my relation, personal professional or romantic, we can move into a symbiotic beneficial agreement based on mutual "terms". but many won't or cannot see this, nor do I impose my bullshit into the lives of randoms at this age.

I don't care if this is cruel, it's real.

I value loyalty, compassion, self-insight/awareness, someone who understands all parts-spirituality, metaphysics while still having intellectual & logical & analytical brain-sight.

I enjoy music, magick and learning new things.

I do not care about appearances I dont think ive dated based on one time. I do value connections and chemistry which is far-few between, I hate fakers. I smell insincerity miles away. but I do respect women who are well-presented, or beautiful, with hair beauty and makeup, I can't do this shit well, so I look up to those who are in professions who do it like art. I find them to be genius level queens who scare me.

I call out bad behaviour and make people uncomfortable if they are repressed. I will change you without even meaning too, I don't even need to date you. its just my presence, over time, amplified by the intensity of the dynamics.

I don't want simplicity, but I also don't need over complexity.

I value passion, independence, creativity, curiosity, problem-solving, deep-disscussions, shared adventures and some occasional risk-taking (lol), sensuality and sexuality for a common cause beyond physical pleasure. I like being taught but not micromanaged. I need my own independence, and need to be trusted with that. I hate being scolded for that like a child, or being pushed to change my ways to conform to societal values. which I will push back and refuse to do. which is not healthy. I don't adult like many others do, but I try to proceed in other ways. and learn to adult like normal people, accept me.

I also value myself, and how I can be celebrated, enhanced and improved vs. the opposite.

I give space, and have boundaries, and understand human psychology, sexuality and relationships in ways few others unless they are trained, can do.

I value MY time. so you can have space to value YOURS. I dont need to be in anyones pocket for a long time. I love being alone, and being around people who are stimulating, but draining people will be drained out of my life quicker than I intend. I am sorry for the people who felt I disappeared, when I was only trying to be 'fair', if I feel I'm a bad influence, I will work on myself until I'm not. I'm still working on it.

I also use this psychology awareness, to enhance communication, connection. you may or may not become an accidental guinea pig. I will be upfront that I am experimental, but that is part of the buy ticket and take the ride. lets work together. not apart.

I am coming from a place of love, and love is what I feel for my animals, which you will be adopting as children.which I want to stop experiments being done on. I love love, in all ways, but hate cruelty of animals and children, violence and suffering. I dont advocate justice, because I find life is fucking cruel, unfair and unjust. by default, so I focus on myself. what can be changed, and what I am able to do in my own locus on control. I will always find myself drawn to the outsiders, the misfits, the vagabonds, the misunderstood. I want to help people who are society, or socially, disadvantaged by trauma and mental illness, but only when I have ability to help myself.

it's a journey.

I will not date anyone who is cruel to animals, outside of specify magical sacrifice, there is not any place for that. nor will I date or fraternise with anything or anyone linked or associated with pedophilia. I won't judge anyone on anything that are outside animal cruelty and pedophilia. I don't and haven't. I keep on good terms with every ex, bar 1 whom I only apologised too this year. it felt good to do that. I change my behaviour.

I am open, but also highly attuned to both logical, factual, empirical , scientific worlds, and spiritual, intuitive, psychic and the "collective unconscious". I walk in both these realms, and I am "conventionally attractive". which puts a lot of pressure on me, to be "stupid". I am always dumbing myself down to fit into normality, but I look ridiculous if I do that so I peacock my intellect.

only to be misconceived.

I give up because I no longer care how anyone but MYSELF can see ME. I won't dumb myself down , but I can enhance you UP. prepare yourself for graded education, evolution and self-growth on mass scales.sorry not sorry.

that sucks for the people who want to be living vicariously through me, for making up to lost trauma years, for family who sold me out for the success I'd bring home, or fake trauma enmeshed friends, or whatever they want or need from me. I value my time and energy, and have given that in abundance, and if you want to be with nut only "one part of me that is alters". I can't provide that now. not sorry.

I have to work on something or not be in a dynamic at all.

I no longer can switch on demand to adapt for you, it will not be effective and that upsets a lot of people. especially now I'm sober. harder to handle this, as I see the world for its ways and why it is, more vividly. I haven't had alcohol for almost 2 months, although, I could drink, I haven't.

I can't do it, anymore. it, being, faking, my selves fronting to impress. I can't. I have no more left to give, and I'm expected by everyone to be a way I can't do it in the way they want.

I will go to another year long outpatient DBT, followed by 10 weeks of A-C-T therapy, and however many ECT OR TMS may or may not help. I'm told it won't (ect) work. but TMS, is something I am open too. but I am telling you, none of this psychotherapy, that will be based on dbt skills, day therapy, intensive skills training, recommencing my studying, and resuming "life worth living" will or can wipe the traumas I've "recovered" memories for.

I will also shut the fuck up, and tell nobody about this if you leave me alone, I told that to my family, and this is open letter to the watchers, stalkers and perps who read this openly as I track the hits on here and have 200+ visits a day every day for the last month. globally. no idea how or who you are but I think its the same people who called the police for the "ayreon song lyrics" seen to be a suicide not last October.

thanks for that wake up call, I have shut the fuck up, since December, more so now. I will burn the journals, or lock them up.

my recovery is not linear, not yet fully integrated and I trust nobody so I don't think my psychotherapy will be deep, I focus on things like ADHD AND my EDNOS. and dbt skills. I won't be talking about sexual traumas.

enjoy the update, and thanks for the "attention".

I have my goals, my work, my meaning and what my life should and could and will look like, but I will not share that with anyone. that means everyone right now.

I've been tested, traumatised and terrorised to the point of not-tolerant of anyone who may bring that back, and banish the fuck out of my sphere every moment I need.

take me as I am, or watch me as I go, which I will go, where I am not wanted I will remove myself, but I will find where I am celebrated because I create that.

I will rise up against all adversity every time but that is survival and that created a resilient and brave woman, in me. who will not be destroyed or decomposed by humans who are fundamentally fucking evil.

I gift you my truth, in progression, and give up the pain of the past.

[stonertransdad]

Life Update since I hadn't been on here in forever

The pandemic was/is wild! Lockdowns started literally around the time we were going to the fertility specialist to get her pregnant. I lost my job to COVID in March shortly before we did the procedure, but we decided there's never really a good time to have a kid. Why not during a global pandemic when one of us in unemployed? (BTW, I don't recommend having a kid during a pandemic. Not being able to go to all of the appointments and having to sit in the parking lot was brutal.)

Let's talk about May friends...it was rough. (TW for mention of suicide btw. I'll post a gif where it's safe to start again if you wanna skip over it.)

So May 1st is the anniversary of my father's suicide. It had been 4 years. I found his body and since he wasn't married, I had to handle his affairs and arrange his funeral. May 1st, 2020 my wife and I had a Zoom game night with our friends and I got drunk because everyone was drinking (except my wife because she was pregnant). After our game night at like 2am, I had a psychotic break. I threatened to kill myself numerous times. My wife tried to talk me down, but eventually called the cops to take me. I thank her for that because looking back, that was the moment I knew something needed to change. I was convinced the cops were gonna kill me because I'm a trans dude in rural West Texas. I legit took the phone out of my wife's hand, hung up on 911, and yeeted her phone across the backyard and tried to hop the fence. Eventually the cops came and talked me down. They took me to the hospital an hour away in handcuffs (for their protection I did nothing wrong). They took me to the religious hospital that I was born in. So when they looked up my info by my name and date of birth from my driver's license (I only changed my middle name) literally all my paperwork and my bracelet had my deadname and wrong gender despite all of my legal stuff saying male with my new middle name. I mentioned it to them and they didn't care. They misgendered me the entire time I was there. I had hit my head hella hard on the bath tub when my wife was trying to snap me out of it, did the hospital even check me for concussion? Nope. I had punched so many things and my hand and wrist were swollen and discolored. Did they check out my hand and wrist? Nope. I was there for over 10 hours before I was able to convince them I was okay and that it was just the alcohol. Did I mention during that 10 hours I was literally out in the hall on a gurney with no mask and this was when COVID was running rampant in Texas (the first time)? I heard people die that night. I had nothing to distract me because they took away all of my personal items and clothes. My wife picked me up and we went home and I have been sober ever since. It's not the first psychotic break I've had with alcohol in my system. Alcohol just doesn't agree with me, but I'm finding new things to replace it with.

TW has been lifted...it's safe now.

A couple of weeks after that I began teletherapy because I had been on the same mood stabilizer and anti-depressant for almost a decade. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that I felt like it hadn't been working for at least a year. This is a reminder to check in with your doctor if you feel like your meds aren't working. You may just need a different dose or a new med. There's no shame in that. I bounced around on various medications trying to find the right combo, some side effects scarier than others, but we got there. Before this, I had been diagnosed with ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. My therapist threw out my Borderline diagnosis and said it was CPTSD instead, which made sense.

Fast forward to December because my wife was pregnant, I was unemployed still, and we did absolutely fuck-all because the global panini was still raging.

Our son was born on December 3, 2020. He weighed 5lbs 9oz and scared the ever loving shit out of us. He wasn't breathing when he was born so they called NICU in ASAP. I'm freaking out because I can hear and see what's going on while my wife was asking if he was okay as they put her guts back in place to sew her up. 5 or so minutes pass and a nurse asks if I want her to take some pictures. I'm like is he okay, he still hasn't cried. She's like "oh yeah, he's chillin." This goon was being held by a nurse and was just looking around not crying or anything. Chillest baby ever (he still is btw). I held him next to my wife's head until it was time to go back to the room. Little dude did have to spend 4 nights in the NICU because he couldn't keep his sugars or temperature regulated, but he was healthy otherwise. He's now 4 months old and is starting to sit up on his own a little bit and he's OBSESSED with standing. He's still a little guy, but very healthy and growing like a weed. He saves my life daily.

So after being unemployed for over 9 months, I started a new job working in a call center. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. It gives me anxiety and throws me into panic attacks, but I had been putting out hundreds of job applications since I lost my last job and this was the first offer I got. I wasn't really in a position to turn it down since my unemployment had ran out 2 months prior. It was 2 months of training, then we'd be on our own. I got thru the training and thought I could handle it...until they started putting us on live calls with someone helping us if we got stuck. My mental health hit the lowest point it had in a few years and my wife was terrified she was going to lose me. She convinced me to quit on February 28th (not because I didn't want to, but because I'm a stubborn ass who felt guilty). My meds got tweaked a little bit more dosage wise during this mess.

Starting about mid-February, I was experiencing severe shakiness, tremors, and spasms. I've always been a shaky person and never really thought too much about it, but at some points I could barely feed myself, or get a drink, or hold my son. On March 7th, I tried to make an appointment with my doctor about the weird symptoms I was experiencing, but she was out of town and her next opening wasn't until the 31st. My body said that won't work and my wife rushed me to the ER on the 9th...I had begun having seizures that day. I had no previous history of seizures. Got to the ER and had a seizure literally as I was walking thru the door, so they rushed me straight back. They took some blood and that was literally it. No MRI. No CT. They pumped me full of Ativan and said it was just a panic attack and to go home and chill.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't just anxiety. I was having 20+ seizures a day. On the 10th, my wife rushed me to a different hospital...the good hospital over an hour away. First we had to drop off our gremlin with my mom to make things a little easier. Yet again, I had a seizure as I walked in the door and was taken back immediately. I don't really remember much because they kept pumping me full of Ativan and morphine because I had been in excruciating pain from the number of seizures I'd had. I do remember them doing a CT pretty quickly after I got there. Then they weren't happy with the results of the CT, so they took me to get an MRI, which showed possible signs of Multiple Sclerosis (but I didn't find that out until AFTER the notes showed up in my patient portal after being home a few days, so I raised hell...more on that later.) They did a 24 hour EEG on me and it showed nothing abnormal. Also, EEG glue is a bitch on your hair and scalp. After looking at everything and given my previous mental health history, they diagnosed me with Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, or PNES. It is a subset of Functional Neurologic Disorder, or FND. I couldn't walk well anymore and had to use a walker when I was discharged. I was in the hospital for 3 days.

When I had my follow-up appointment on the 23rd, I asked why the possibility of MS was never mentioned to me since it was very clearly in the notes. The doctor didn't have an explanation. He called in a referral to neurology so I could get a 2nd MRI to confirm MS and marked it as high priority. He also didn't take my pain seriously. My pain levels had been at a 5 or higher every single minute since they took me off of the morphine in the hospital. He told me to keep taking prescription strength doses of ibuprofen and Tylenol, which I had been. I let him know I had been and it didn't even take the edge off the pain. He ignored me. Leading up to this appointment, I had also added urinary incontinence to my growing list of symptoms and was forced to wear diapers so I didn't have to do laundry all the time. The doctor also took me off my ADHD meds because they were lowering my seizure threshold. He also took me off of my sleeping meds and nightmare meds for the same reason I'm assuming.

I kept my appointment on the 31st with my primary doctor because she's been my doctor for 5 years now and I knew she'd take my pain seriously. She did. She immediately wrote me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and Tylenol 4. She also told me that my referral had been rejected by neuro. She said my case wasn't a good one for what she called a "wallet biopsy" and the doctors in neurology could be real assholes. She immediately sent the referral to other locations to get an approval. I am still waiting on that despite it being marked as high priority. She wrote me a prescription for a wheelchair because we both agreed my wheelchair was not enough for particular days.

Yesterday my wheelchair was finally ready for pickup, so my wife drove me to go get it. I'm still unable to drive due to my seizures and my tremors and twitches as it's predominantly in my legs and arms. I am an ambulatory wheelchair user now. Some days I can go short distances without my walker, some days I can't go without my walker, some days I can't even get out of bed, and some days I will be using my wheelchair. Don't judge a book by its cover, not all disabilities are visible. I have managed to keep my daily seizure count down in single digits and have even had a few seizure free days. They are still incredibly taxing on my body. I feel like I can't ever replenish my spoons fast enough to keep up with anything in my life.

So all in all, life has been chaotic. We are moving from Texas to New Mexico in the next few weeks, which should be interesting considering I can't overdo it without throwing myself into seizures. We will be closer to my mother-in-law so she can help us with our son and I can start resting a bit more on the more difficult days. Being a stay-at-home dad with an invisible illness has been one of the most challenging things I've done in my life, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Sorry this is so long. I just wanted to update my followers since it's been over a year since I posted before a few days ago.

[rebelscum-2187]

So after nearly 22 years of life on this planet, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am high functioning autistic. I believe I fell through the cracks of an early diagnosis for the following reasons:

1.) I am Female (I learned how to mask myself very early on)

2.) I have a gifted IQ (above 130) and was classified as such in 4th grade so no one considered that I could be both ASD and intellectually gifted.

I am in the beginning stages of unmasking and am currently seeking an official diagnosis. Right now, I’m trying to write down everything I know about my neurodivergent experience so here’s a list of things I’ve experienced and believe to be relevant. If you can relate or you understand please comment and share! I’m new to this community and it feels so good to finally meet people who understand and can relate. Ok, Here we go.

“So the general population doesn’t memorize scripts to movies or watch the same one every day for a year?”

“People think it’s weird that I prefer to have subtitles on when I watch stuff, even though I don’t have damaged hearing”

“I watch movies with subtitles because I won’t understand what’s said if I don’t read it. I have no hearing issues.”

“I cannot hear/understand someone if I have one ear bud in and one out. Too much sensory input at once.”

“I thought I had a hearing deficit because I literally could not understand people at church or parties or other places with a lot of background noise, and I was so confused when they told me my hearing was normal.”

“I love star wars. Not just love but I could tell you what planet each character is from and what kind of ship they use, what model droid that one is and I will gladly talk about it all day if you let me. Everyone now gets me Star Wars stuff for my birthday and holidays”

“Eye contact is so uncomfortable for me that sometimes it ‘burns’ to maintain it, but then I overcompensate and stare too intensely. Over the years, being female, I’ve forced myself to make eye contact for a certain number of seconds and then look away a certain number of seconds but I’m concentrating so hard on that, that I don’t remember anything that was said to me.”

“Giving me verbal directions is a special kind of hell. I need it written down.”

“I can memorize pictures of things and exactly where every kid sat in my 10th grade US history class as well as my 9th grade geometry class.”

“I never fit in anywhere, in my childhood, most of my adolescence, except the swim team and my new church.”

“Team sports are the worst. I can’t communicate fast enough, I’m bad with hand eye coordination and keeping track of a ball. I excelled in individual sports and fell in love with swimming.”

“I often found it much easier to make friends with older kids because I could have intelligent conversations with them and their good social skills could make up for my lack of social skills.”

“But, I had a few friends that were considerably younger who I could still play imaginatively with dolls when I was 13 and one particular friend was 9. I had a lot of trouble getting a long with her sister who was the same age as me.”

“It physically pains me to hear someone mispronounce a word, spell something wrong, or make a grammatical mistake. I corrected my cousin A LOT when we were kids, she frequently got mad and I couldn’t understand why. My grandma would tell me to stop because correcting people is rude.”

“One of my special interests as a kid was dolphins. I was 5-6 years old and I remember being so excited when my mom let me check out like 10 books from the library and I read them quickly and multiple times.”

“I corrected a teacher one time about dolphins. She said dolphins weren’t whales and I knew FOR A FACT that ‘dolphins were a type of small whale’ because I read it in one of my books. She laughed at me and so did the rest of the class and I felt stupid even though I was right. This led to me suppressing my knowledge and real self and ultimately more masking.”

“As per that last one, my memory is impeccable.”

“I had another special interest in dogs when I got a bit older. My mom bought me a book with every kind of breed of dog, where they came from, their temperament, their size, everything. I can still, to this day, tell you the breed of dog just by looking at it.”

“I always wanted a best friend but never had one. I had groups of friends but never someone who would call me their best friend. When I got a boyfriend in high school, I was so excited because he called me his best friend and he was mine and I finally had that feeling reciprocated. He also had a gifted IQ and dyslexia, ADHD and a few other things so we understood each other quite well.”

“I can’t tell if someone is flirting with me because I can’t read between the lines. I also don’t know how to flirt because if I like a guy too much I get soooo nervous and I stumble over my words and it’s a disaster.”

“When I liked this guy (last year, 2019) I would freeze up so bad when I talked to him that I rehearsed every conversation I wanted to have with him so I wouldn’t mess it up. I would write topics in the notes section of my phone before hanging out with him so I’d remember what to ask him. It made for very awkward and forced conversations and probably drove him away.”

“Sarcasm and jokes almost always go over my head. The boyfriend I had in high school was very funny and outgoing but used a lot of sarcasm and it always caused disagreements because I took him seriously when he was being sarcastic.”

“I talk slowly and very monotone.”

“I have no difficulty reading in my head and can read/comprehend it well, but reading aloud is difficult and I often stumble over words and mess up.”

“I need directions repeated multiple times before I understand.”

“I went to the beach to hang out with some church friends yesterday. They all play spike ball and are so confused as to why I sit there and don’t play. I’ve tried playing spike ball but it involves way too much hand eye coordination and I’m so bad at it that it’s embarrassing. So I don’t play.”

“That same night, a group of them said ‘let’s play uno!’ And I was so happy to play something familiar that didn’t involve a lot of coordination. Then they said ‘we’re playing SPICY uno, right?’ And immediately my heart sank because I knew they were playing a different way that I wasn’t familiar with. Again, receiving verbal directions was hell and I didn’t understand it. I was so bad at it and wasn’t getting it, and in the middle of the game I had the urge to cry. I wanted to cry because I couldn’t even get this right. I suppressed the urge, of course, so they wouldn’t think I was even more weird than the already suspected. Another group of people that I wouldn’t fit in with.”

“Making friends has always been so difficult. Once I make a good friend I hang on to them for as long as possible even if they’re not very nice because I’m scared I’ll have to make a new one if I lose them. And we all know how hard making new friends is for me.”

“I’m a perfectionist. Especially with my art projects. When I took a painting class I realized I do it the wrong way. You’re supposed to paint layer by layer over the entire canvas and focus on small details at the very end. I work on one small area at a time and do small details too soon. I often spend way too much time on small details before I realize that the larger shape of the object isn’t proportionate and then it’s too late.”

“I won’t even attempt tasks if I know I can’t do them perfectly.”

“I have perfect pitch. I don’t know if that has anything to do with autism or that I just started music lessons when I was young. I can tune instruments perfectly without a tuner or reference note and I never understood why my orchestra teacher had me play the A key on the piano over and over again while she walked around and tuned everyone’s instruments when I could do it without any reference. I can hear it in my head.”

“When my parents got me a keyboard at age 7-8, they were impressed because I could sit down, without listening to any song and find the notes of a song I liked by ear. I still do that today but my piano is very out of tune and it bothers me.”

“Autistic boys tend to isolate and not care about concealing their stims or weird behavior but girls don’t. I am a ‘loner’ and always have been but I want so badly to belong and have friends and socialize, but I’ve always been so bad at it that I strike out every time. I often drink at social gatherings because it helps me loosen up and talk more freely. I guess it helps me lose the mask for a while.”

“I HATE people touching me. I’ve always hated it and still hate it to this day unless it’s someone I’m super comfortable with. I’ve been told I have the ‘dead fish hand shake’ and I’m an awkward hugger. My friend picked me up from behind and carried me for a few seconds because we were all goofing off and having fun but afterwards I was so mad at him I got really quiet and didn’t talk for a while. I told him later on the ride home that if he did that again I would slap him. “

“Everyone thinks it’s weird that I don’t like touching people, and some of my friends who also don’t like touching people were abused and I always thought, ‘there had to be a reason, maybe I was abused as a kid and repressed it.’ It’s been so long and I’ve finally realized that maybe it’s just because I have Aspergers or ASD. “

“When I make sarcastic remarks or jokes I often have to clarify because I say them in such a monotone way that people think I’m serious.”

“I’ve always joked that I’m just really clumsy and uncoordinated, and chalked it up to being tall and lanky. That’s why swimming was the perfect sport for me. Little to no risk of injury and not much hand eye coordination needed to be good at it. Just hours of practice, technique and endurance.”

“I also injure myself quite a lot because I’m ‘a klutz.’”

“Stims: I scratch my head and then smell my fingers and I will do this for hours if I am able (I know that one is weird so I only do it at home) popping my knuckles a ridiculous amount of times when I feel uncomfortable and don’t know what to do with my hands. I twirl my hair constantly (that one is pretty socially acceptable so I do it in class nonstop). I tap my foot or bounce my leg, I make weird facial expressions and forget to hide those. People notice but they often think it’s funny because I’ll make a face if someone says something dumb and make an expression that people seem to relate to. I scrunch my nose if I’m uncomfortable or just whenever.”

Special interests: Star Wars, Disney (I know every word to every Disney song and I watch animated Disney movies over and over again, like literally every night) dolphins, the ocean, dogs, theology/the Bible.

“With my art work, and other things, I will get so focused on a painting that I will work non stop for 8-9 hours (all day basically) and not eat because I’m so focused that I forget to eat.”

“I think I slur my words a lot and sometimes my friends will laugh and be like ‘did you just say ____.?!?!’And I’ll clarify and they will continue laughing and say ‘oh it sounded like you said this.’ I hate when that happens.”

“Loud noises really bother me. I jump if I hear an unexpected loud noise and I hate people yelling, even if it’s not directed at me, it makes me want to cry. “

“I loved the color blue so much as a kid (I still do) but my entire wardrobe was basically different shades of blue t-shirts. I also only ever wore baggy t-shirts and baggy cargo shorts (I kinda dressed like a boy) because it was comfortable and I didn’t like getting comments if I looked “cute today”. I hated the attention. I also never ever wore my hair down to school. It always had to be up in a tight pony tail. I still don’t like my hair being in my face to this day and wear it up almost every day.”

“The other day, I was hanging out with a friend and she was trying to tell a story but I kept getting distracted and interrupting her. She said, ‘Emily, you kind of interrupt people a lot.’ At first I was hurt, but then I realized it’s not entirely my fault and it’s an autistic thing.”

“I mask so much that I have rehearsed responses to social interactions and will often get so nervous or start speaking from the script before I realize I’ve said the wrong response. Of course I’ll think about it all day after that and think of ‘well great, so and so thinks I’m weird now.’”

[imagining-in-the-margins]

im honestly sorry if you feel triggered by this, but how do you feel about mgg fans diagnosing him adhd to excuse him saying the r word? isnt that invalidating towards neurodivergent people because hes not actually diagnosed with it? for some reason that just really bothers me (i have horrible adhd that i actually take medication for and it's awful so it annoys me when ppl ask diagnose with it)

So, I don’t have ADHD - I’m neurodivergent because I am autistic - just want to put that out there before I move on. 

From my understanding, people mistakenly think that he is actually diagnosed. I’ve seen a few people swear they’ve heard him say it. I’ve searched for awhile, but never been able to find any sign of Matthew explicitly calling himself ND in any manner. Since I think a lot of it comes from a genuine misunderstanding, it doesn’t bother me at all. (*If someone has proof he’s identified that way, please let me know and show me the link!).

As for people who are actually openly and admittedly armchair diagnosing, I take issue with that. I’m a firm believer in self-diagnosis, particularly in America and for adults over the age of 20 with NDs, specifically. It is way harder than a lot of people understand to get a proper autism dx in America if you’re an adult. If my parents weren’t willing/able to testify to my childhood, no psychiatrist would believe me. I think a lot of younger folks don’t realize how much our understanding of neurodiversity has changed in the last three years, nonetheless the last thirteen.

HOWEVER, armchair diagnosis is awful in my eyes. I am not a fan for a number of reasons, part of which being that there is often a bias by the person doing it. A lot of ND symptoms overlap between all of the different “qualifying disorders,” and I constantly see people say X is evidence of Y, when the correct statement is X can be evidence of ABCDEFGHIJKLM- (You get the point).

When it’s done by a NT or able bodied person, I get even more upset. They have no business guessing what it’s like to be us or talk about how they perceive us. It’s not their business. They need to keep their (usually ableist) opinions to themselves, period. I don’t want to hear about whether or not they think there is something “wrong” with literally anyone, ever (that includes Cheeto Man, who people seem real comfortable throwing “bad” mental illness labels on).

Lastly, my biggest problem with armchair diagnosis or outing someone’s disability they don’t outwardly express is that it takes the autonomy away from the person that matters. I personally don’t think it’s right to reclaim a slur if you don’t identify yourself as a member of that demographic, since you are benefiting from the pain without any of the work/danger. That being said, some people’s opinions differ. Our histories with our own disabilities and how the world reacts to them are all very different.

Do I think Matthew is ND? Possibly, but it’s not my place to say that for him. If he doesn’t say he is, then I’ll assume that he is not, because that’s probably what he wants. Until he says otherwise, I will assume that he does not want to be identified as ND, and in my opinion, he shouldn’t say the R slur (which, he hasn’t said in almost 5 years now, has removed from his very first directed works and website, is part of a campaign to replace the word, and he has started heavily advocating for adults with intellectual & developmental disabilities - one of THE most neglected demographics). 

Finally, I actually have some semi-controversial feelings about the R-slur itself and who should feel comfortable reclaiming it. The ND umbrella is extremely massive, and includes wildly different experiences. When specifically referencing the R-slur, the people whose opinions should be amplified the most, to me, are the people with intellectual and developmental disabilities that also suffered at the hands of the educational system.

As someone who was in school in the nineties, I went from being officially marked the R-slur on my educational record & being told I’d never be able to hold a job or be a functioning member of society... to being told I needed to skip 3 grades & that I was a genius... Those two experiences are so, so, so, so, SO painfully different. Sure, I still got called the R-slur for my other behaviors outside of the educational context, but we can’t erase the VERY different experiences in SpEd and TAG programs. I just want people to think about that, too. I personally get kind of uncomfortable when people who’ve never struggled with learning or intelligence tests tell me they get to use the word. I don’t feel comfortable using the word, but I also grew up in a very different time. I’m glad that people feel more comfortable with reclaiming the word now, though, because it means we’ve made progress and they feel safer with it! There’s a lot to it, and it’s an intracommunity discussion, anyway.

That’s a brief summary on my feelings. Mainly I want people to be patient with people who say he has ADHD just because I think a lot of people genuinely (albeit mistakenly) believe he’s identified that way. A lot of ND people cling to any representation we can find because it is so rare to find. I try to be more understanding with the topic for that reason.

[asd-n-me]

so I’ve been trying to figure out what disorder I have for years and recently I learned about autism. (I think it’s grossly over stereotyped because I thought it was weird until I looked it up) and it describes me for the most part. I stim when happy like the flapping. I have sensitivity to textures. Executive dysfunction is very real. I get distracted easily and motivation is so hard to come by. I have small routines rather then large ones. Your account has been really helpful in this process

Pt2 but I’m nervous that I’m just trying to fit a box.Like my social skills are horrible but I speak and understand sarcasm. I don’t get sensory overloaded but i hyperfixate on things. I have a special interest(s) on weird things but I also like things in the “normal way” I stim a lot and have weird mood fluctuations that I try to keep down so no one asks or sets me off.But I’m almost 18 and there should have been a earlier signs?Idk do you think it’s possible Or am I just trying too hard to fit

I am sorry my response is a little late, I’ve been having technical troubles but I am back. 

Friend, I am so glad that you find my account helpful because that is always my goal. 

I have always disliked people asking these things in asks, just because I know the typing is limited so it’s hard to describe all your experiences in 500 spaces or less. 

Hyperfixation, executive dysfunction, distractability, mood fluctuation, and some stimming and sensitivities can be seen in our ADHD cousins. I’m sure you are aware of that already. 

1.That being said, if you’re just discovering your autistic traits recently I am sure you are missing earlier signs that you haven’t even put together yet. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. 

Not to mention the fact that, “high-functioning” considered individuals tend to be able to somewhat handle things in their youth, but start breaking down as they excel in age. 

2. You do not have to have sensory overloads to be autistic. Many autistics are adept at self-regulation and can for the most part avoid overload. 

But I hope you realize you do not have to meltdown or shutdown to be in overload. If a sound or texture or anything else sensory related has ever had you afraid you might yell at someone, scream into the abyss, or had you white knuckling the table or breaking a pencil or ripping paper to keep your cool etc. than you have suffered the effects of sensory overwhelming you. 

If the last thought in your head is, “how did i manage to not lose my shit?” It’s because you were being overwhelmed. 

3. No need to differentiate between little and small routines, if you’ve been on my blog you know I am a big supporter of people who experience small routines. You are no less. 

4. Plenty of autistics understand sarcasm and use it frequently. It doesn’t somehow disqualify you despite what certain Neurotyicals think. Late diagnosis autistics often manage certain aspects of socializing with their deficiencies written off as being awkward or quirky. 

Something to think about as well. A. did you always understand sarcasm? B. how much sarcasm do you not realize you are missing? 

I live in a sarcastic household, we use sarcasm constantly, but there are still times I don’t realize someone is being sarcastic and no one explains it. I have felt very proficient in sarcasm my whole life, but I was quite surprised to find out how much I was still missing. Not saying that’s your story, but it is something to think about. 

5. Now that I’ve been talking forever, sorry for that, there are always some earlier signs of autism because it is a lifetime disorder, however that doesn’t mean people around you or even yourself will notice them. 

Don’t stop looking into autism. If it resonates with you look deeper. When I first read about autism I didn’t think it was me at all. You’d think that would be ridiculous and that I should have seen myself immediately but I didn’t. It wasn’t fancy articles and informational videos that helped me see it either, although they helped, it was through the experiences of other autistic POV. 

I can post somethings about recognizing earlier signs or autism soon, I would recommend for now watching the video I posted about being a teenage aspie, neurowonderful and invisible I are good youtubes for learning about autism. Neurowonderful is more informative and invisible I is a little less accurate but fairly relatable. 

A good blog to look into on tumblr is asdmemory tagged #ASDmemory because they talk a lot about childhood autistic memories. undiagnosedautismfeels is off track of its real intentions, which I know drives the admin nuts, but has stories of before they knew they were autistic. 

Save the things that resonate with you, write em in a book, whatever you want. I wish you well in your journey to self discovery and no friend, I don’t think your are just trying to fit it. I think you are trying discover who you are. <3

(if you still have questions feel free to hit the ask box again i will answer, if you’d like to talk more please don’t be afraid to send me a message. if you still prefer asks because of the anon feature than don’t be afraid to spam me with like 5 in a row. whatever helps you feel like you explained yourself. dont be afraid to ask the same question either if you didnt feel i answered it as it was intended.)

Have a great day! 

[sunny-down-snuff-im-alright]

Journaling Attempt #1 – 8/19/2021

I had all these ideas of things I wanted to say but all I can think about right now is if I should change the format of the date to the more reasonable European way of going Day/Month/Year instead of the Month/Day/Year that I am used to. You know, to make a change. Maybe it will be THE change that I make that finally gets me on tract to being a normal person in the world and everything clicks in to place instead of this disjointed catch all, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, somehow I manage, way things have been going so far. I watched Bo Burnham’s “Inside” special about two weeks ago and have been listening to the songs again recently. Man did that hit hard. I think like a lot of people right now it really resonated. If you haven’t seen it yet, I wouldn’t say it is ‘funny’ but it’s not not funny too. It is this weird line of being openly raw about one’s mental health – which is both refreshing and scary, and also being painfully self-aware of being open and raw about one’s mental health. The latter of which I can relate to on a cellular level. It is also very inspiring. While I’m not locking myself in a room with a camera and making a special or writing catchy songs, I am writing this. Which is the first time I am really writing anything that wasn’t an assignment or something for work. So, who knows if I am any good at this? (The self-aware portion of my brain pops in as I write that to say “You don’t know if you are any good. This is true. But you think you are good, even though you have never done anything like this before, but you are doing to post this somewhere with the though that it will be seen and impress people who read it which in turn will have them heap praise on you and give your life meaning.” It also says “This gimmick of knowing that you know is a great way of distancing yourself from everything and making yourself feel above it all and comes across as smart, you “I’m 14 years old and so deep” jack ass. You’re 43. Grow up!” And lastly “You just don’t know when you stop?” Rule of 3’s!) Anyway, I’m not completely sure what I am going to do here or what I am looking to accomplish, beside procrastinate while at work because the idea of rifling through the messages on my desk, or in my phone, or in my email, gives me a full-on legit panic attach. And not in some modern “OMG, I’m having a panic attack looking at that line in Starbucks” kind of way. No. Like real tightness in my chest, breathing getting shallow, and sweating through my shirt kind of panic attach. Luckily, I’ve got my trusty pill case here and I’ve taken a piece of a Klonopin that I have at the ready and it seems to be helping some. At least with the panic part. Not with the getting work done part. That’s where the ADHD part of my brain can still run wild and fuck stuff for me. What’s tough about that diagnosis is that in talking with my therapist (one of two that I have. One LCSW and one Psychologist) is in telling her that I’ve always been distractible or in my own head she just simply said “So you have ADHD” which in some respects is freeing because there is a label and now a known way to attack the problem. However, in trying to figure out how to attack it and become more “neuro-typical” as the kids say, is rough as we try to find the right fit. I know that is part of the process. Nothing is going to be perfect right out of the gate. But man, is it fucking hard. I just want to find the right pill to take to make me ‘normal’ so I can live in the world and be a productive and useful member of it. Of course, I know that there is no magic bullet cure-all. It will take finding the right mix of meds and supplementing that with life-style changes. Exercising more and mediating more. Eating better. Change is flippin’ hard though. And to what end? Do I want to be normal? Whatever the hell that means? I’ve always prided myself on being a little bit different. I know, I know. That makes me sound insufferable, which is totally fair and true. What was fun and endearing at 13 doesn’t fly at 40 as the father of two. That said, I have found my way to be the slightly “off” one. The one parent who doesn’t mind putting himself out there for things or be the but of the jokes. People, especially kids, can tell who can take a joke and who can’t. So, I don’t have a problem being the parent whose kids friends circle can call by name in a jokey way or let the girls on the soccer team constantly beat me in races or games. But, does taking that magic pill that I’ve yet to find, is that going to change who I am, and will I lose this more “wackier”, and one might say “passionate”, side? Will become just a regular dull drone in the sea of corporate masses? How do you hold on to the part of yourself that you feel defines you while it also appears to be killing you? Do other people ever feel this way? Does my wife? My siblings? Do you? I’m sure someone reading this just now say “Yup! I totally get what you are saying” to which I respond, “I’m so sorry as this suck, huh?”

 Talking with people helps for sure. Seeing you are not alone. But sometimes that is a hard place to get to. How much do I want to share with my wife? I know she loves me and will continue to do so and only wants the best for me. But I don’t want to open this door and unload all my own bullshit on her and now she will be constantly worried about me. Like more than the regular amount of her worrying about me because she loves me. And god forbid I actually go into this kind of detail with my therapists. Because once I do that, that means I officially have all these problems and then I have to do deal with it. So, I continue to keep things surface level. “Yeah, I’ve been depressed lately” and “so this is what is going on with my parents at the moment and how I have to deal with it” and those kinds of things. Which is still helpful. But I’ve been talking to them for years now. Does this mean I need to find new therapists? I’m such a non-confrontational person I don’t even know how to begin thinking about ‘breaking up’ with them if that is the case. And how do I even find someone else? Like most things in my life, I just kind of lucked into these ones and been coasting ever since.

 Sorry, about 5 minutes just passed as I sat here frozen at my keyboard thinking about what I just wrote and what else I might want to say and get out of my system right now. Scene:

Brain: Um, dude? What happened? You started off alright and had some amusing bits in there but then when full on confessional. I thought you wanted to be funny and stuff.

 Me: I know, I know. I just kind word vomited and went stream of consi…stream of consusious…stream of thought and that’s what came out.

 Brain: That’s the joke you are going with? Everyone reading this knows you have spell check; you could have just done that and no one would know or cared.

 Me: Yeah, I could have, but A) it gets another joke inside this bigger bit we are doing here now and B) helps endear me a little more as a grown man who has trouble spelling.

 Brain: Okay, wow. First of all, I don’t know if it really endears you to the reader or not but calling attention to it doesn’t make sense or help at all. And secondly, you never explain the joke. That ruins the joke. You’ve scene enough documentaries on comedy to know that’s how it works.

 Me: But what about being ‘meta’. Commenting on the commenting.

 Brain: Yeah, I get what you are going for but at some point, it is just tacky and uncreative.

 Me: So, you are saying this is just going to come across as obnoxious and whiney and faux-intellectual?

 Brain: Absolutely. You really just need to put on your big boy pants and suck it up, buttercup.

 Me: Shit.

 …

 Me: Want to go look at some porn? Brain: Obvious, exploitive, and immature but sure. Let’s get that dopamine hit. That always helps.

 Sponge Bob “Three Hours Later” title card

 Me: (with a heavy sigh) I hate myself.

 Brain: Me too. But I am feeling a little better so let’s get some actual work done. Me: If you say so.

 FIN

[taleofharrison]

First Night | Gwilym Lee

Summary: Y/N and Gwilym have been dating for a while but she hasn’t spend the night at his place since she has problems with sleeping she doesn’t want to be a bother.

Warnings: Mentions of ADHD and sleeping disorders.

Requested: Yes, sorry it took so long real life is a bitch sometimes.

Word Count: 742

A/N: This is my first time writing for Borhap in like a year so be kind and I had to make my research too and I found out that I have some ADHD symptoms so yay! self-discovery (I’m not making an auto diagnosis but it was good to know it) anyways it’s short but cute but to the point.

MASTERLIST HERE

Dating Gwilym had been nothing but a dream. He was a gentleman and he treated you and spoiled so much in more than one way, however, you haven't been comfortable enough to spend the night at his place. Being younger than him by almost 8 years and him being a public figure brought an awful lot of attention to the relationship and he also was very well aware of your problems with ADHD. Today you had spent the day at his place watching movies here and there and joking around (most of the time you were talking and moving around under the blanket but you couldn't help it) at around 6:00 you decided it was time to leave. "Why can't you stay?" he asked hugging you from behind softly kissing your neck "My bed's big enough for the two of us" "I know," you said and turned around to face him "but I don't want to be a bother" "You're not a bother!" he stated, "I told you I don't mind staying up late with you or to help you calm you down. I miss you so much sometimes" "And a miss you too" you assured him "but this is my final decision I don't want you to have a restless night because of me" "Please I've done my research on this so that you can spend the night with me" he begged "Please ask me anything" "Uhm...do you know what restless legs syndrome is?" you asked looking down at your feet. "It's one of the possible sleeping disorders caused by ADHD" he recalled from what he had read. "Yeah well...that's my problem with sleeping most of the nights" you explained, "I toss around and move a lot and I don't want you..." "Don't finish that sentence" he interrupted you "I want you here doll...please" "Fine" you sighed feeling surprised. You've had boyfriends here and there but they never took the time to understand what was like for you not to sleep as peacefully as everybody else did. "What time do you usually go to sleep?" he asked you not bothering in hiding his smile. "Uhm...around 10 o'clock 11 tops" you replied. "Alright so that gives us around 5 hours tops to spend time together," he said "and do you have any routine I need to know? I read that having a calming bedtime routine might be important" "I don't have one really" you shrugged "I just turn off my phone and try to avoid Netflix during the evening" "So that means no Netflix and chill" he softly laughed, making you smile "but we can have a small dinner I'm going to start making it now" He left you alone in the bedroom to make something simple for both of you so you wouldn't go to bed with an empty stomach (something you were used to doing). Though you still had your doubts about this you couldn't help the feeling growing inside. You felt loved and safe for the first time in a long time.

After a few minutes, he called you for dinner, nothing too fancy just some salad since it was getting late a big dinner wouldn't be right for you. "Would you like to have a warm bath?" he asked you again while eating your dinner "I also read that a change of temperature can help you get a better night. I could prepare it for you" "Gwilym! I-I truly don't deserve" he chuckled moving with his hand as though he was brushing off your statement "No seriously nobody, not even my parents, have had these considerations with me on this topic" "I just want to make sure you're okay" he simply said "your my girlfriend and I love you and I want to make sure you're alright" "I love you too" you replied "and tomorrow morning you can come with me on my morning hike" "Alright, doll" he laughed "but I'm making you breakfast tomorrow morning and you can sleep as long as you want okay?" You were getting ready to protest since it was most likely that you'd wake up Gwilym at some point of the night but before you could say anything Gwil cut in with an "end of discussion" and he put the dishes away. "On one condition" you pleaded " only if you join in the bathroom in a few minutes" "Deal" he smiled as you disappeared into the hallway.

[mcrmadness]

I met with the new psychiatrist today and apparently here in Finland adhd is still a little boys’ disorder. I don’t understand why can’t they take it seriously when I talk about it? Why can’t they even run the tests on me???

Now I’m just having extremely bad conscience because I keep reblogging posts about adhd and the fact that I can relate to so many aspects of ADHD (inattentive), RSD and executive dysfunction makes me feel so fake now. I feel like I shouldn’t be reblogging, I should be tagging because I feel like I’m taking the platfrom from those who ACTUALLY have it diagnosed. This is my main reason for looking for a diagnosis - I feel like I cannot exist as who I am as long as it’s not “official”. I will keep asking myself why I feel like ADHD but why do I still have an Asperger’s diagnose I don’t even agree with? I don’t even have any of the “biggest” Asperger’s traits but I match fully to the inattenttive ADHD.

Apparently the core reason is: there was never any proof of ADHD when I was younger. No one ever questioned if what I have might be ADD. But it was the 90s! And early 2000s! No one was even talking about ADHD on girls (as I’m nonbinary afab)! Besides, I had social anxiety and selective mutism, my school problems were not because I would have failed, my school problems were me being very sensitive kid and having weird-ass mental blocks that prevented me from doing Things at school. And no one ever suspected Asperger’s either. So when one random doctor writes it as my diagnosis when I was 22, suddenly there’s no way to get rid of it???

I also feel like I was not in the best place when I was to those psychological tests back then. I had quit meds 6 months earlier and I had been eating them for 5 years - from the age of 17. In tha timet I had one SSRI medicine for the whole time (it made me numb and unable to create and focusing was even harder than what it’s now) and then two different neuroleptics, the first one made me eat nonstop and gain weight and caused hypersomnia; the second one replaced the previous and it made me so severely hyperactive (I felt like I saw what it really is like to have ADHD) even sleep was difficult and then I started to be dangerous behind the wheel because I didn’t remember to look at the mirrors and just laughed about it, and then I started having blackouts, even in the middle of driving. I stopped with these two when I wasn’t even 19 yet. And I feel like they did some permanent damage to my brains. That was the first time, 10 YEARS AGO, when I started to actually think about ADHD and I was googling a lot if one can have ADHD as a brain damage from neurolepts. Or if it could trigger a childhood ADD into adult ADHD.

I really would like to know what those test would say today, when I haven’t touched any kind of antidepressants or neurolepts in 7 years and now as my brain chemicals are actually back to normal. You just don’t recover from 5 years of antidepressants in just 6 months. I had a severe derealization going on still year or two after quitting the meds.

But yeah, I just feel so bad for reblogging adhd things here because apparently I can’t have adhd if you ask the psychiatrists. And the Asperger’s thing makes me so mad. I think they just look at me and think I look like someone with Asperger’s because I don’t look people in the eye - that’s just me being an introvert and highly sensitive person with lots of traumas. They literally just see how I’m on the outside and they think all that is because of something neurological. But they refuse to see what’s REALLY going on in my head and they refuse to understand anything I say is real. I don’t know if it’s because I have been researching and reading about adhd a lot, if that’s what immediately makes doctors go into this “you’re selfdiagnosing therefore you cannot be right I’m the doctor here!!!” mode. I have seen this before too - when I talk about these with actual medical terms, the doctors write down that I do so. Why? What is so bad about it? As a teenager I was never even told about the diagnosis, I just overheard them talking about “social anxiety“ and “selective mutism” and I had to go and google them myself because no one ever told me why I was there. I thought it was fun to go there and talk with adults and I was mindblown when I found the Wikipedia page about social anxiety and it was like reading about myself.

Now I’m seriously thinking about contatcing some sort of a neuropsychiatric specialist or so who would have actually updated information about neurodivergencies and who would ACTUALLY listen to me and take me seriously. Now all I get is suggestions for a medication and occupational therapy. And I still don’t even know what that occupational therapy is + if they think I need that, why don’t they look into the CAUSE of me needing that? They just think you don’t function like everyone else in this society so let’s try make you fit in :) Fuck you, why we always need to fit in? Why don’t neurotypicals ever try to adapt to us??? I still feel like the Asperger’s diagnose is there on me “just because you’re not like everyone else” as if it was the only way to call someone acceptably weird. (Also I’m not calling people with Asperger’s or autism weird - I’m only talking about myself here because it makes me feel like I can’t be weird in peace without a diagnosis but then I don’t get even tested for something I do think I might have. Anyway, my now adult sister has both Asperger’s and ADD and we are SO different what comes to the Asperger’s, I was always the one to look after her because her thinking process has always been very different, even way different from mine, but I relate to her ADD feels and symptoms a lot.)

[fragilefears]

Cheers to 5 years of Critical Role!

I want to say something about what this game, this show, these people mean to me - but I don’t really know what, or how, to say it. So I’m tempted not to. But I don’t want to bail on this because I feel some very strong things and I need to get better at expressing that.

It hasn’t even been a year since I began listening to the first episode of Vox Machina, downloading it on my phone while I waited for my very delayed flight to take me to see my family for Easter.

A friend of mine at work was (is)a huge fan and had been playing D&D for about a year before this - I was interested but also very busy and unable to take on any new commitments. But in the new year I joined a weekly D&D game with them and some other friends, a few who watched CR. It was a lot to get used to, but so much fun. I intended to try to watch CR, but sometimes I’m weird about trying to consume new content if it’s unfamiliar... It was a few months later - sitting in the plane, realising that my flight was delayed hours later than scheduled, further prolonging the long 10 months I’d been away from my family, and quietly sobbing with homesickness for my sister - that I thought what the heck, I’ll give it a go. And it was so much fun! It was slow going at first... but within weeks it all but consumed me. (Oh also i eventually got to spent Easter with my family and it was very good)

When I got home, it wasn’t long before every waking hour that I wasn’t required to speak to someone, I was listening to Critical Role podcasts on my headphones (I only really watched the live shows, and watched more of C2 as I caught up - these days I watch the new episodes each week.) It was crazy, and fun, and dramatic, and interesting, and my ADHD hyperfocus had never found something so engaging and utterly expansive to latch onto before. Everything else is so limited - movies run for a few hours and then you’re rewatching the same thing again... books can be re-read (but also you can’t read when you’re grocery shopping or crafting or paying bills....) tv shows are ok but not many are long enough to keep you going before you have to make another decision of What To Watch Next, then I’m left with a space where that world, those characters, are absent.

Not so with Critical Role! The sheer wealth of content is breathtaking and it’s wonderful.

However the volume of content is such a small aspect of my love for this show. There’s also:

THE STORIES

THE CHARACTERS

THE IMPROV

THE BEAUTY

THE COMMITMENT

THE FANTASY

THE DANGER

THE COMEDY

THE EVER-EVOLVING DYNAMICS

THE REAL LIFE FAMILY OF FRIENDS who demonstrate love and acceptance and community and joy and pain and commitment to each other and to empathy... that’s where I became hooked.

I’m not one to have or keep very close friends. And for a long time I thought that was a Horrible Thing about me as a person, but the harder I tried to force myself to Be A Better Friend the more neurotic I became, I let down others, I felt fake and pushed myself to be something I’m not.

At the time I started listening to Vox Machina I was about... 2 years after a mental breakdown, 2 years into understanding and managing my adult adhd diagnosis and monthly therapy to learn how to not hate my entire being. Which had improved over the 2 years, but just months before Easter last year, things were Very Bad and all the work I’d been trying to do to manage my shitty brain felt all for nought, and so I had just begun anti-depressants - which I swear, changed my life.

But I also attribute that life-altering shift to becoming someone who actually wanted to live; who discovered who she was at the age of 31; who stopped hating herself and stopped trying to be everything to everyone... I attribute who I am today to the influence and inspiration of the love and creativity demonstrated by a bunch of nerdy voice actors playing dungeons and dragons.

I now understand that you can say dumb things and not be rejected by the people who love you. I realise that making mistakes actually IS the best way to learn. I discovered that it’s absolutely ok to not do everything, and if you need to become obsessed with a podcast about dungeons and dragons to actually start saying no to things, that’s ok too.

Thanks to these guys - Matt, Marisha, Liam, Sam, Taliesin, Laura, Travis, Ashley, Brian and the whole team - for the first time in my life, in this past year since I began watching Critical Role... I learned that I kinda like who I am and that as long as I stay true to that, and love others in whatever ways I can, that I can actually relax and there’s a lot of fun to be had (and in a shocking turn of events, I no longer believe that I would be better off not existing! So that’s good!)

The stories they have created, the community they have grown, the love and affection they have for each other and the absolutely joy they have for their game and all the crazy risks they’ve taken and meaningful statements they’ve made - Critical Role is... I just don’t think I’ll ever have the right words to express what I’m trying to say. They just speak to my heart and soul - not just the two campaigns, but so much extra content - namely Talks Machina & Between The Sheets & All Work No Play - that have branched out from the original game (to be fair, Critical Role technically spun off from All Work No Play...) seeing and hearing and being inspired by the Actual Human Beings is such a beautiful thing.

So. Anyway. This got out of hand, but it was either this or giving up and not saying anything at all. And i think maybe they’d prefer we shared things we are grateful for, the things that inspire and change us.

There’s still so much I could say, but instead I’ll just say this: my very first memory of Critical Role is @assuredgrave turning to me at work, in fits of laughter, telling me about how a certain gnome bard ran alone into a house full of enemies, transformed into a triceratops up against a household of crossbow-armed guards and a Goliath, gets stuck in a door turns back into a gnome, slides across a table, dimension doors onto the roof, turns invisible, drinks a fire-breathing potion, and spewed fire from off the roof, before using a giant magic hand to swat the bad guy away, then falling into it to carry himself away from the burning house. What utter chaos and hilarity and adventure to be discovered.

Thank you Critical Role.