#social okayness

[lady-laureline]

Another ramblepost.

After mulling it over for a few months, I am ~97% sure I'm autistic. As this is the second neurodevelopmental label I've acquired after adhd, I'm somewhat more familiar with the whole revelatory process - i.e. the "so that's why I do that" and "no wonder this keeps happening" moments that are a significant part of why said labels feel justified (others have been explored & rejected).

I have all these little anecdotes about weird misconceptions that have kept me from spending time on the things I find worthwhile, such as feeling like I was too late to the party to be considered a legitimate part of a subculture, or taking my crappy memory as evidence that I don't care about this thing as much as I think I do. One notable moment was realising that I hadn't gotten myself a poster I wanted because of some subconscious narrative that personalised décor is for "real people".

All of this is to say that I've always been aware of several degrees of separation between myself and the general public, and not just because I wanted to be special.1 Growing up neurodivergent means you can never quite close that gap, and that shapes the way you interact with the world: studies on the social perception of autistic individuals basically say that being "a little off" is enough to ruin a first impression, which is, in turn, enough for most people to write you off as undesirable.2

×

And I'll be honest, I wasn't nearly as excited about figuring out my autism as I was about my adhd before I even thought to look at the evidence. The stereotypes are notably less palatable: at least adhd gets the manic pixie dream girl, but ask someone to describe an autistic person and there's still a good chance they'll default to a stubborn six-year-old boy with encyclopedic knowledge of the Cretaceous and zero interest in making friends.3

Even representation that is halfway decent tends to portray autistic characters without any inclination towards concealing their atypical traits, often lacking the self-awareness to even consider it, so people get confused by the thought of us operating somewhere between social grace and social oblivion. Then again, people also short-circuit when they see a wheelchair user stand up for 0.2 seconds.

Some things you don't understand until you're forced to. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't listened to someone's lived experience with unfamiliar symptoms while trying to conceal my doubt. There was a time when I wouldn't have believed my own claims, what with my warped sense of time and my hyperacusis, is thAt even a tHing lol

There's something I really want to pin down about trying to exist while everyone around you keeps sending you signals that your very perception of reality is just wrong. It messes with your head, undermines your identity. I've been working so hard at unraveling trauma bundle after trauma bundle, and I'm only just starting to believe I'm even allowed on this planet, you know? Some people aren't so lucky.4 I'd love to be at ease with myself without needing to justify it to some imaginary audience.

×

This brings me to my next point: cringe.

I am one of many who treat self-censorship like a necessary evil for the sake of appearing adjusted enough. Whether it's self-soothing with the hand-flappy thing, going off on a tangent about a topic of interest, or feeling the overwhelm creep into my nervous system, there are plenty of impulses and reactions that I've learned to stifle so that people will be more inclined to talk to me.

What's the problem with that, you might ask. Isn't learning to adapt a good thing?

I hear you, but this isn't adaptation, this is assimilation. We don't get to choose how our bodies process information, no amount of discipline that will rewire our brains to be "normal". We have a natural way of operating, but most of us have been moderating ourselves for so long that we don't even know what that is. We only know that bad things happen when the mask falls, when composure is outpaced by stress. Looking at it this way, it makes a lot more sense that the world only recognises autism at its worst.

Setting boundaries would ease the pressure, but when it comes to voicing smaller issues the assumption is that we're playing them up for attention. For those unprepared to imagine having to live with chronic discomfort, calling it a lie feels rational - which leaves us not calling for help, but embarrassing ourselves for some reason.

×

As a cherry on top, we still don't know what autism is, despite decades of research. Autistic brains are characterised by both hyper- and hypo-connectivity in different areas. There is consistency in certain functional deficits, however studies keep getting conflicting results while trying to map these out.5

While elusive in origin, our differences put us at measurable odds with the scattered demands of a modern environment. Sensory sensitivities are a giant handicap when we live in a flood of sensory information, and without the ability to develop the standard tolerance it becomes a constant battle to just feel okay on a day to day basis. But if we can outmanoeuvre the bad stuff, we can focus; and if we can focus, we can excel.6

I mentioned beforehand that a lot of the behaviours commonly recognised as autistic are linked to distress. My hope is that, with the growing awareness we're experiencing, we'll be able to normalise happier traits as well.

× × ×

1 Which I won't deny, but my secret teenage wishes had a lot more to do with being whisked away to the fairy realm than being bullied at school.

2 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/

3 It's the "lack of empathy" in particular that gets under my skin. There are a whole bunch of steps between feeling an emotion and expressing it in a way that translates well. We're not always good at those steps - doesn't mean we don't care.

4 The suicide rate of autistic individuals is roughly sevenfold that of the general population. (International Research Priority Setting Exercise 2021, "Where do we go from here?")

5 https://embrace-autism.com/autistic-brain-differences-connectivity/

6The other option is putting the bad stuff on hold - intoxication can offer temporary sensory reprieve to some. Without other accommodations available (as is all too often the case), this can easily turn into a destructive habit.

[nataliesscatorccio]

there's a message in yellowjackets that really resonates, about what it looks like to "overcome" trauma. you live through something indescribable, you're "rescued" from that thing, and you have a grace period. how long? a week? a month? a year? how long before the world stops giving you grace, how long before the world expects you to give them a pretty little story with a happy little ending so they can stop feeling weird when they look at you, for the way what you've been through makes them feel? how long before you have to be a wife and mother to prove you're fine, or a successful politician, or a respectable nurse. or, how long before they want to see you in the psych ward or rehab so they can frown and ooh and ahh at your failure to assimilate back into a world you can no longer see in the same light? they don't want to help you. they want to watch you. they want to make a feel-good story out of you. a quippy headline. and if they can't, they'll make you their cautionary tale. if you can give them neither, you'd better hide yourself away. everybody asks "what really happened out there?" what was it like how did it feel what did you have to do to survive it? and the answer is there is no answer. it is still happening. it is happening every night in your dreams, it is happening every time you look in the mirror, it is happening over and over and over again forever. hitting the "recovery milestones"–the socially acceptable You Did It life markers such as a successful career, a successful family, a successful whatever the fuck–meeting those marks isn't for you. you don't see the merit in those things anymore. and why would you? you know a different way of living now. it's for the audience who wants to be placated by your okayness or entertained by your insanity, and will not rest until you've given them one or the other. the wilderness may have taken indiscriminately, cruelly, violently. but society is worse. that's the difference between hunger and gluttony. you ate your friends to survive. they are eating you to throw you up to eat you again to complain about how unpalatable you are now. and then they still ask for more.

[livixbobbiex]

More on ADHD and acceptance in Percy Jackson

TLDR: Percy Jackson was a formative ADHD representation experience for me, even though I didn't know at the time, and I hope it can be that for others too. Mostly a slightly tmi personal tale, but this has a point I promise.

I was a teenager during that specific sweet spot where internet culture had taken off, but Tiktok wasn't a thing yet. Social media was less algorithm based. This meant that my exposure to ADHD as a concept was somewhat less than what you see nowadays.

Percy Jackson was pretty much the first (and only) exposure I had to ADHD. And because I was around 13 when I first picked it up, I hadn't figured myself out yet, so I didn't have that instant relational experience. What I did relate to, though, was the emotional weight. Percy's narrative voice sucked me in, because even if I didn't understand 'ADHD' fully, I fundamentally got the otherness. The weird sense of just being different from other people. I used to daydream about being whisked away too, that I would get some explanation for why I was Other. So when I read the PJO books, it was a case of deeply understanding that narrative, but not fully knowing why.

I was able to fully pin down that I was probably an ADHDer by 16 or so (more after things like internet quizzes and specific research). And I was only able to actively start the diagnosis process when I was 18.

So when I read the Percy Jackson (and Heroes of Olympus by this point) books again with that context, it was a different experience. It didn't teach me that I was ADHD (I will say, the books don't really focus on that and consistently tie behaviours back to it explicitly). But they don't portray ADHD as a negative thing and that's very important. There is legitimate room for criticism of the 'ADHD superpower narrative' in the early books especially, don't get me wrong, but for my young self this was legitimately so helpful.

What it meant was that for me, my first true experience with ADHD was a sensation of okayness and acceptance. As Percy was told, there's nothing wrong with him, he was just built different, brain tuned to be better at different things. Yeah, the 'mortal' world is difficult to cope with, but that doesn't mean that Percy was somehow wrong or broken. Just... different. Which I suppose is the reason Rick started telling those stories in the first place, too.

That message is what stuck with me super hard, when I could directly apply it to myself. It's a fundamental part of why I have never been afraid of my diagnosis, and why I'm comfortable being super open about it both online and in my day to day life. I genuinely do not think I would be in nearly as good a position in life as I am today, had I not read those books.

So yeah. I'm stoked that the series is back in huge relevance. I absolutely love the way that ADHD has been portrayed so far in the show. In general I think access to information about ADHD nowadays is a net positive, though I do share concerns that there's a tendency to over medicalise/hyperfixate on the condition part of it. So, it does make me happy to get the kind of representation that's far more in the 'you're not broken by being different' lane, because that's something we could frankly all use more of.

[nulfaga]

i won't lie i absolutely hated martyr! lol. adolescent as fuck. plus that man needs to do a social media cleanse he put ea-nasir in his fucking book. the wire mother. the margaret mead healed femur thing. "okayness". jean valentine and the reticence of the world (Lord Come / we were sad on the ground). the brian eno bit about old media. Literally any bitch on here who posts about leonard cohen could have written this book.

a character smokes shisha and says "apologies to edward said". i had to read through my fingers girl

[femmesandhoney]

That post about “people worry about their gender representation so much” is so true especially if they consider it a healthy part of their “gender identity” and so them as a person, what they are deep instead of… just clothes and looks and often lowkey sexism.

Like it’s the normalization of this kind of stress that’s just a regular part of existing instead of a pressure mostly put on woman. And while it’s true many “cis woman” worry that way too… it’s not healthy for them either. There is a thin line between self care and looking nice and living trough others perception. That giving anxiety and it’s not THAT normal or shouldn’t be.

Instead of thinking “hmm maybe i should work on letting go of these expectations and just exist” it’s very much “oh no I don’t have an ISSUE with my identity I’m just non-binary i’m fine with it it’s other people problematic attitude and it’s just what i am… anyways doesn’t this suck and isn’t this depressing and shouldn’t i do this or wear this so people don’t call me woman is it a woman thing too”. Like i know you genuinely believe this is Your Deep Inner Identity but don’t you get you are stressing yourself about things that shouldn’t matter.

And if you recognize it’s dysporia which again is very real… don’t you recognize working on finding some okayness with your natural existence is healthier than feeding in that the things you do and the idea that what you wear or do can be “wrong” and “not fitting with my gender identity” as if self monitoring like that won’t make your issues worse.

its very sad! dysphoria can be so debilitating, but its crazy to me when people cannot escape the grip it has on them for even a mere second to remind themselves mentally healthy people don't worry and stress themselves nor think about their internal world "matching" the outside to such a strong level that it becomes an MI. like obviously many of us do have a normal amount of socialization that pressures us to perform either femininity or masculinity and we do worry about how we look in general in public but we have stable self concepts so there's just an obvious difference between how we perform on a day to day level than so many of those in the trenches trans identified teens/young adults

[golden-----hour]

135

7/5/24

I should maybe number this based on days instead of entry. Ragav explained how Pennsylvania numbers its highway exits by mile, rather than by quantity, like on many highways in New Jersey. So this entry would be, like, 500 something.

I just turned off the video simultaneous this so I have to fully devote myself to this page. I might be 58% devoted. I think some people believe themselves too much. I also think dying is a lot more like trying to nap and your sister is talking on the phone, trying to make plans, and being half awake. Dreams and reality make contact. I don't imagine it clean. I walked back through my front door and thought I might have gotten into a car accident, and my ghost returned home, as there was no one. I genuinely felt it for a second. And I may never read this back with proper attention. And I do not have enough time or attention for things. I understand why I have been left behind.

Many things are occurring to me at once. Ragav threatens me with his language prowess because I use my own language prowess to make myself feel important. If someone is better at being me than I am then I don't need to exist. I wonder what I mean by this. I wonder about how I generate social value to others, and also how I perceive that I am socially valuable to myself. I felt like I could not be "safe" in any language, but I don't understand this condition fully. Immunity from what? I worry that he does actually like me because that will make friendship difficult. One shred of worry is like rain creating flash flooding into my okayness. A drop is a sphere accelerated by gravity into a bullet. Who is the better gay man? Who has the more glorious hook ups? He feels generally more "accomplished" than I am- I am not even composing well or playing piano well right now. I can feel avenues of myself fossilize.

Fourth of July. I grow tired so talking about the booming while sitting outside on the patio at the Wald's feels anodyne. So many years. We were late to the fireworks. They started 30 minutes early because of the rain. Cheyenne's boyfriend has my name and is very cute. It was hard not to notice how I thought he was cute. I am thinking about the fourth of julys squished together like sheets- these composite moments coalesced. All of the peripheral socializing. The knowing of the knowing. I felt a bit chewed up by the too fast rain and the echoey dark. As the fireworks began, we walked towards the school and we saw light peeking through the trees. Having arrived, I mused about which people, like me, came annually to this one event and how I wanted to know them and their ritual and I wanted to be seen. And I wanted to be like Cheyenne having a beautiful boy with me at an event inside of the igneous dark. Rain began as we sat there and it was hard to distinguish it from sweat. Will I ever read this back? I can only write this because I am not intending on showing it around. I thought about the spider clouds wrought by the exploding lights. I felt like a poet in wanting to see things. I couldn't tell what already existed. I couldn't tell if I needed something novel or universal. Hands reach for hands and the salt of this is being a little jilted. Growing up is not feeling beautiful when you are sad and that ache is more dull when you are older. My avenues are fossilizing and in knowing who I am, I am aware of my supposed potential and that which I am not. Cheyennes boyfriend, who has my name, was beautiful and I was just slightly too old being there at that table and the evening protected me in no way from the barreling hours and all that is to come. Things feel different, maybe not less sacred, but when you live longer then you just know. I am curious about the knowing.

I was speaking to Will in Spanish. I asked if he was interested and then recommended that he pretend. I liked that I could see him secretly. It reminds me of Cole from like 6 years ago. My dreams when I was young are not my present self's responsibility. A TikTok says that this gay man wants a straight bf. The comments rally, "heavy on the straight bf." This is my announcing my exhaustion in sympathizing but rejecting this. I want to feel safe with a partner and I have been taught how correct masculinity is embodied, which coincides with toxic masculinity. I also am allowed to have preferences but opposite attract is literally a myth. Gayness blends the other a little bit. That is my own dick in my mouth in yours in mine. This is the essence of queerness- unapologetic attraction that defies expectation and system. Not attraction but essence. I am anyone wanting anyone.

I was with some pretty stupid people. Laura said German and I wouldn't work because German wants dark masculine mine and she implied I am too feminine and that he embodies that already. It was limited thinking. You can be anyone and want anyone. I am a good partner and a top. They thought Will was possibly gay, which secretly excited me, but only because he wasn't perfectly masculinely stupid. He has interests and engaged and they incriminated him for this. I thought it was stupid. It's also clear that he is of a higher class because of how he speaks and what he values and his interactions with them versus me. (And how class is important to me.)

Their values seem potentially different than mine and I didn't appreciate the thoughtlessness. I thought some of Laura's statements were pretty insightful thought. I take people for their word and do not seek ulterior motives or different intentions, which could be a fault- thinking that people are presenting as they should. How do we damage control? Cheyenne told that boy that she loved him outside and he did not say it back and their first years of college are starting in September. So how should we presume? Everything ends anyways so why can't we exist? We always exist with a stop watch. I didn't speak my mind fully because I didn't think it would be understood. I am nonbinary when I do not respond to top or bottom as a question. I just say when I am down there I cannot tell sometimes. I just know what smells good and how to touch my toes to my forehead. I don't need a gun to feel threatened, just my good eyes and a place to grab.

I think my writing cannot be clever because being clever doesn't make me feel valuable. I think my writing needs to be kind and insightful and help everything love everything else a little better.

[3dayweeknd]

sometimes i think im starting to do okayer with like coping with the state of my loneliness and my social life but then i remember the field trip in eighth grade where the goal was team building and making friends and talking to people and i didn’t have friends so i was randomly paired with a group of girls that were already friends and they sat together at a table at lunch and didn’t save a spot for me so i sat alone at an adjacent table and one of their dads sat across from me since he chaperoned and neither of us said a word during lunch and then i remember being in sixth grade arriving early to music class and sitting on the right side of the choir bleachers and then every single student coming in after me deciding to sit at the opposite end of the bleachers so that the entire rest of the class separated themselves from me and i remember that at the end of the day i am still the 10 year old that never had a partner for assignments and was forced into a group of three and i am still the 14 year old who sat with a book during lunch and went through entire days of school without uttering a word to anyone and i am still the same little girl who was never chosen to partner up with in class or picked for teams i still as a girl in her 20s arrive at a table during family vacation in which my cousins have finished eating breakfast, not thinking to text me that everyone was eating together and not making space for me when I arrived. i am still the teen version of myself that never had a best friend and had nobody to remember my birthday and i am still the sad lonely girl i was

[visualbrainrot]

I read Prufrock and loudly refuted my interest in T.S Eliot. Because I hated Prufrock and who wants to study another dingy old man who thinks the world is against him. I sat and I talked shit, I muttered and I moaned about how stupid his privileged little opinions were. How can someone who has never faced adversity possibly have this much of an adverse reaction to general society?

However, I quickly ate my words when I read Preludes. The way this poem reached down into my heart, ripped it out from my sternum and succinctly dissected it in front of a wide audience. Because my soul truly is "constituted" of a "thousand sordid images". Because I never do actually feel like a whole person with a whole soul, but a fragmented monstrosity stitched together from the skins of a thousand different individuals, reaching out and wondering how I can become together. And is all I am "muddy feet" or the "hands" that "raise dingy shades". Nothing but a part or two. Never one, never a person but just a human version of a thing. So socially isolated altogether that I can no longer be classified under the term Homo Sapien. And then I wonder for the "conscience of the blackened street" that I "trample" every day on my "insistent feet". And I feel bad, that the ground ever had to carry the weight of my fractured person, that I myself cannot even lift some days. That I have put this burden of my disconnectedness onto the world itself because I am so careless with my heavy tread.

And don't even get me started on Journey of The Magi. I thought my soul exploded right out of my body when I read this. It felt as if the very universe was beginning in a bang right inside of me. The deep relatedness I felt to this poem was overwhelming. Because I have been the Magi, and I have discovered and I have shunned just as he did. I relate to the poem probably not in a journey of spiritual awakening and affinity for Christianity as T.S Eliot intended, but as one of personal growth and discovery. The biblical allusion and religious symbolism are something so profound to me as a queer individual who attended a Christian school. As someone who listened to people ache and moan about my very existence. Which in turn caused me to hurt and suffer, question my identity and my role in this world and ultimately develop mistrust and wariness of religion altogether. But now I am me and I too, like the Magi, have had "such a long journey" to get to the place I am. My path of self-discovery and ultimately an okayness with myself is something "I would do again" at any cost. And sometimes I wonder if it was a "birth or death?". For who I was before, is she dead, lost forever? Or is she buried within me, leaving space for the birth of me as I am now? This new, enlightened, awakened version of myself, is she truly any better than I used to be? Because at the end of the day, I still hurt and I still fight for myself within my own mind and this birth of me, who I am now "was [a] hard and bitter agony [...], like death". And every day I still feel at ill ease when I visit places of my "old dispensation". As I view my old friends and watch my estranged family as they become an "alien people" to me, forever "clutching their [foreign] gods". Whether these gods be literal or metaphorical. I watch their struggle and I feel disconnected, untethered from them and their ideals, floating in a bubbling lake of anxiety and poor judgment. I do not know where I belong in the world where I no longer believe in their deity. I feel disconnected and untethered like an astroid floating aimlessly in space.

Please tell me why I'm insane Thomas, you're the only one who knows.

[piplupod]

OH BIG SIGH!!!

[capwilsons]

i had this great talk last night with my best friend about how fandom behaviour often resembles addiction and like.... it’s true

[shamansbluezz]

When Pamela Courson met Jim, he began putting his money where his mouth was. Whereas all he had previously brought to the moment was morbid romantic excess, he now had someone looking at him and saying, “Well, are you going to drive off this cliff, or what?”

She was someone with red hair and a heart embroidered on her pants over the place her anus would be. He was a backdoor man, and Pamela was the door. Pamela was the cool one.

Everything a nerd could possibly wish to be, Pamela was. She had guns, took heroin, and was fearless in every situation. Socially she didn’t care, emotionally she was shockproof, and as for her eating disorders—her idea of the diet to be on while Jim was in Miami going to court was ten days of heroin. Every time she awoke she did some, so she just sort of slept through her fast. Once, when she did wake up, she went with some friends to the Beverly Hills Hotel see Ahmet Ertegun and fainted. Voilà, there she was back at UCLA, diagnosed as dying of malnutrition. Good old Pamela, what a sport.

She would take Jim’s favorite vest and write FAG in giant letters on the back in india ink. She would go through Rodeo Drive’s Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, piling her arms higher and higher with more stuff, muttering under her breath, “He owes it to me, he owes it to me, he owes it to me.”

Pamela was mean and she was cool. She liked to scare people. Pamela had control over Jim in real life. He made his audience suffer for that.

Pamela looked sunny and sweet and cute—she had freckles and red hair and the greenest eyes and just the country-girl glow. It was hard to believe her purse was stuffed with Thorazine (that horrible drug they used to give acid freak-outs). She wore mauve, and large, soft, expensive suede boots and large shawls, but even her laugh was mean.

She was so mean, she told Ray Manzarek (the worst nerd worldwide, known to his friends as Ray of the Desert) that Jim’s last words were, “Pam, are you out there?” even though he actually left a note. And she knew that the note would establish forever the literature-movie myth of Jim’s Lizard King image. Everyone hated Pam except Jim.

A friend of mine once said, “You can say anything about a woman a man marries, but I’ll tell you one thing—it’s always his mother.” “Mother,” Jim sang, “I want to ... aggghh.” Pamela was more than happy to supply the lip back: “Oh, you would, would you? Well, fuck you!”

I couldn’t be mean to him. If the phone rang at night and there was a long pause after I said hello, I knew it was Jim. He and I had a lot of ESP in some kind of laser-twisted, wish-fulfillment kind of way. I always wished he were there, and every so often, he zoomed in.

“The thing that really made people mad at him,” my sister reminds me, “was that he drank. And it wasn’t cool to drink in those days.” “Yeah,” I say, “he did drink.” Of course, I drank, but I tried to keep my drinking within the psychedelia-prescribed boundaries of okayness. I drank Dos Equis, wine, and tequila. Jim drank Scotch.

Jim drank, got drunk, and woke up bloated and miserable and had to apologize and say he loved you, the alcoholic’s ancient saving grace. Jim drank and got drunk and then was so uncool he had to walk home.

Jim drank, got drunk, and wanted to be shown the way to the Next Whiskey Bar. Whereas the Rolling Stones were ripping off Otis and Robert Johnson and Chuck Berry, and the cool and hip Buffalo Springfield were riffling through Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams with folkie touches or else trying to achieve soul, Jim was ripping off Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, Jean Cocteau, and Lawrence Durrell. While the Rolling Stones were making it cool to be black and folk rockers were making it cool to be white trash, Jim was making it cool to be a poet.

One night I was in the bungalow of Ahmet Ertegun. Ahmet proceeded to tell a rather gross story about midgets in India, and when he was through, Jim rose to his feet and bellowed, “You think you’re going to win, don’t you?! Well, you’re not, you’re not going to win. We are going to win. Not you capitalist pigs!”

Jim burned his bridges in Paris. He got fatter and fatter, drank more and more, sampled Pamela’s heroin, and piled up suicide notes on a table in their rooms. Since Jim had rheumatic fever in his youth, his heart was not in condition for what he did to it there—combining insult with fuckups until finally one day Pamela came into the bathroom and Jim wasn’t kidding.

She returned to the West Coast and sued for her share of Jim’s estate until she got it and then, since three years had passed and she was now the same age Jim was when he died, she, too, OD’d and died. She left behind a VW Bug, two fur coats, and Sage, Jim’s dog. A quarter of the group’s estate was split between her family and his, and her father saved Jim’s poems and put them in a safe place in Orange County. 

—Eve Babitz, from “Who was Jim Morrison?” article in Esquire, March 1991.

[frankthesnek]

How the episode Quarantine should have gone. (Rated G)

John stared at the ring. His ears were suddenly ringing, in stark contrast, at the same time muffled white noise was filling his head. Rodney was smiling and still tittering on about how this was the logical next step.

"That's... great buddy. Congratulations," John heard himself say, not registering the words on his tongue as they left him. Rodney? Married? To Katie? No, no this couldn't be happening he had more time. He was supposed to have more time. He needed more time to figure out how to tell Rodney how he felt.

This thing with Katie was supposed to be a fling.  An on-again-off-again attempt at a relationship. Not a serious thing. Hell, half the time John was convinced Rodney forgot  they were even dating!

"What? What's that look for?" Rodney stammered.

John--who had still been looking blankly down at the now closed ring box--turned his gaze back up to Rodney. The scientist was watching him with an expression half nervous, half confused. "Nothing, good luck," John managed to get out through his emotion tight throat.

"You think I'm making a mistake don't you?" Rodney asked, sounding a touch panicked now.

"No. No." John waved a hand at Rodney and handed the ring box back to him, fingers feeling tingly and numb. Rodney's fingers grazed his as he took it back and the heat the contact would normally spark felt icy cold.

"What's with the face then?" Rodney questioned waving a finger in a little circle towards John's face.

"What face? I'm not making a face," John defended a touch too quickly. Clearing his throat he tried again. "Just surprised. Go get her tiger." John stood and smacked Rodney on the shoulder, forcing a smile onto his face.

"Right okay," Rodney said, still looking a little skeptical. He pulled his radio from his ear, set it on the table, and headed for the door.

John watched Rodney go heart sinking with every step the other man took. The smile slid from his face. He couldn't keep up the false projection of okayness. The door slid shut as Rodney took his leave and John looked at it sadly for a moment before falling back down to his chair.

The brief moment of depressed quiet was interrupted by the lab doors sliding open again and Rodney stomping back in.

"Okay. I know I might be what some call socially incompetent, but even I'm observant enough to know that is not the way a best friend is supposed to react to hearing their best friend is going to propose."

John blinked up at Rodney, doing his best to school his face into something close to normal. If the deepening of Rodney's frown was any indication, he failed. "Really I'm fine. Go and ask her. I'm sure she'll say yes. Who wouldn't say yes to you?" If his voice cracked slightly on the last sentence it was pure coincidence and had nothing to do with the emotions swirling around John's gut.

"No," Rodney said, wagging a finger so close to John's face he nearly brushed the tip of the soldier's nose. "There is something going on here. You've always had a problem with Katie. What is it?"

"No problems! Katie is fine." The words were like acid on his tongue.

"Tell me, what's wrong with her? What's your issue?"

"Why does it matter what I think?" John sighed, rubbing his temples. He was getting a headache from all the pent up emotion and really wished Rodney would just go so he could have his little break down in peace.

"It would be nice to have the blessing of my best friend, that's all!" Rodney said scowling. "What's wrong with Katie, what do you have against her?"

"She's not me!"

The words surged past John's lips before he could even process that he'd thought them. They hung there between them making the air heavy and stagnant. Then because he had already screwed up and his body was apparently not listening to his brain anymore, John reached out and grabbed the front of Rodney's jacket, yanking him in close.

Why the hell not, John though. He had already screwed things up, why not at least satisfy the desire that had been burning in his chest from day one. So he yanked Rodney in and kissed him square on the mouth.

Rodney went still and stiff, completely the opposite of what John had been expecting. He had been braced to be shoved away. Scolded with fast harsh words and jerky hand gestures. It threw John for a loop, and since Rodney was apparently not going to end the kiss for him, John pulled back and let go of his jacket.

Rodney stood there blinking at him. "You kissed me."

John clenched his jaw and said nothing.

"You--you don't want me to be with Katie because you want me to be with you," it was a statement not a question and John shifted uneasily. "Why didn't you say anything?" Rodney pressed.

Eyes on the floor John shrugged. "You know I'm not good at that kind of stuff. And what would I have said?"

"But you did...." Rodney sucked in a little breath and John looked up at him. The scientist was wearing the awestruck look he normally reserved for technology related epiphanies. "You did say it. You have been this whole time. Our friendship... you're closer to me than anyone--you let me in and keep everyone else on the outside."

"It's easy with you. I don't have to try or pretend." John hated how meek his voice sounded, but the mix of emotions pouring through him was making him weak.

"John," Rondey pulled the ring box from his pocket and set it on the table. John wanted to smack it off the table and across the room. He didn't want to look at it. "I should have seen it. I'm supposed to be a genius," Rodney continued.

John nearly flinched when Rodney's hand cupped the back of his neck, all his nerve endings felt raw and exposed. He met and held Rodney's eye not closing his as Rodney pulled him in, because if John wasn't seeing it he wouldn't have believed it. Rodney was kissing him.

Sly, nimble lips moving over his and the relief the action brought was nearly enough to buckle John's knees. Letting his eyes slide shut John kissed him back. It didn't last long, but more was said between them with that single kiss than in four years of emotionally repressed friendship.

"What about Katie?" John asked in a hushed voice. He wanted Rodney but he couldn't share him. He wouldn't be the other person stuck in the shadows while Rodney pretended with her.

"Katie isn't you. And It should've been you. This whole time it should've been," Rodney leaned in to kiss him again.

Just as their lips brushed an alarm sounded somewhere in the distance and the doors clicked and locked behind them.

Rodney dropped his head to John's shoulder groaning in annoyance. "What now?"

"Don't know," John said, frowning at the door. Then he glanced down to where Rodney was resting against him. Despite the unknown of the situation he couldn't keep a smile from returning to his lips. He felt lighter than air.

"You'll figure it out. You always do." John patted Rodney's back firmly, letting his hand linger.

Straightening Rodney met John's eye, happiness seeping into his look of worried annoyance. "No, we always do."

[simsfromupthere]

uhhhh so yeah, i know ive been MIA for like 303948483938 years i was actually embarrassed to open the app at all and post about it hhhh idk why i have this voice in my brain that kept telling me people would be md at me for some completely unrealistic reason, but ive been off my adhd meds for over 2 weeks now (not by choice or per my psychiatrist, my pills ran out) cause i started having a really bad experience and so these past weeks i just been incredibly sleep deprived then jumped to hypersomnia like waking up at 5 PM and shit, i had awful dry eyes dog that shit sucksss, but anyone for the longest time i legit lost all enjoyment in doing anything i usually do down to things that take me a lot of effort beyond a hobbie like making art (these are some random scraps i made most are weeks/months apart from each other) to even things i do for simple entertainment and as a relaxing fun hobby like TS4, so i legit had no content to even post cause i didnt even feel like playing when my game finally loaded, i had headaches 24/7 with a dash of nausea, was heavily having constant thoughts about r*l*psing and ideations of that ~bad thing~, i pretty much isolated myself from everyone and everything even my family and close friends and would spend all day in my room just melting all and hating myself for possibly screwing shit up again when i had finally started feeling a little content i swear i started getting angry and frustrated that i couldnt even cry and let the agony out (just zoloft things 😂), but a couple days ago then i had 2 awful p*nic attacks 2days in a row cause i just got so frustrated with myself, my self destructiveness and the way i drag down the people i love with me in my stupid vicious cycle, soooo...yea i was not doing too fresh to be online or post at any social media tbh i feel embarrassed about posting this cause i have vented abt my personal chaos so much on this blog thats meant to be about the sims 4 and not posted ts4 content and i idk i just put dumb expectations and feel embarrassing and stupid even rn writing this; i feel a lot better i mean i still feel awful but i feel significantly okayer especially with passing the concerta withadrawl hardcore symptoms and feeling getting a good cry, i just wanted to post this for...i legit have no idea why i felt like randomly posting this at 3AM maybe the kl*n*pin mellowness or something but idk i had this weird feeling of even feeling like i look stupid and feel embarrassed i wanted to post some sort of update cause ive been (or at least it feels maybe it hasnt been that long my concept of time is fucked) off the grid on this blog for so long and just wanted to drop by with a “whoop whoop am still alive” or something sorry im rambling i probably sound weird as shit rn lmfao, anyone here some irl art cause even though im still playing ts4 ive been mostly useless on ts4 content and just playing as a hobby to pass time as of now heh

[beautifuldarkmind]

I didn’t expect you to respond so quick!

I suppose it’s difficult to decide whether I can work because (a) I’ve worked in the past and (b) I do often appear happy and can feel a degree of “okayness” (whether or not that’s being happy is a mystery tho, I don’t know anymore).

I had one job working as a cashier for 7.5hrs over Christmas 2019. Then didn’t get a job again until Christmas 2020 working as a general shop assistant (stocking shelves, cashier, etc) for I think 16hrs? And then earlier this year (2021) I got a job around April which I didn’t want and cried about getting but my parents kinda pressured me to take it and that was again, shop assistant (but mostly cashier work). All of these were temp jobs so eventually I was let go of. I had at least 1 panic attack at each job (at my first two jobs these happened in the first couple of days, at my third job it happened in the second to last week) and especially at my last job, had a lot of micro-cries, which I had to quickly stop because of customers coming.

Honestly I don’t know how to feel. Whenever I am reminded of work I get upset. And I recently s*lf harmed because something work related came up. The last time I applied to a job I desperately wept in my room because I didn’t want it (but it was another job my parents encouraged me to apply for). And at my last job, I pretty much spent the 5 days I want working being anxious and depressed that I would have to work again. I couldn’t do anything because I was stressed about the 2 days / 20 hours of work I was gonna do later that week.

I can’t really tell if I’m more in pain than I thought or am just exaggerating things to avoid responsibility.

- 🌸✨

I only just saw this in my inbox so sorry for the late response !

It sounds like I could have wrote this. I literally had the same thing, panic attacks at work... I used to hide in the toilet because I would feel so overwhelmed and I honestly hated it. Please dont feel pressured and compare yourself to others when you're struggling.

You arent exaggerating, if you find it difficult and overwhelming then that is valid. Have you considered remote jobs possibly? like ones you can do from home? maybe that would make you feel better as you would be in a safe and comfortable environment? due to the pandemic most people are still working from home so I know theres a few jobs going that mean you can do that. Idk just a thought

But yes with the 'okayness' I'm the same, I come across very extroverted sometimes like at jobs I will make conversations with the customers and really be able to sell products etc but then other days I can barely function and I'll be having panic attacks and severe social anxiety to the point where I'd rather not be around people. It really is confusing and I think that's the issue with mental health .. its always unexpected. Some days you will be fine, other days you can feel like the world is terrifying and you're alone. It doesnt dismiss the fact you are suffering, it's just the unpredictability of it all.

I'm so sorry you're going through this, I really do relate and it's so difficult I know. I wish it was easier but those around you and parents especially dont get it. They will call you lazy or assume that by forcing yourself into work you will magically be cured from all your mental illnesses. It really doesnt work like that

[jadevibes777]

How?

How do they continuously show this porcelain perfect image of who they should be? How do they maintain? You know them. Those people we see online. Those friends whose smiles look like they almost will break if you knock them over. Those folks whose laughter sounds like wailing. The ones who must have you see them in their best light all the time. The ones who glisten and never gain weight. The ones who book movie deals and television shows and let you know each and every single success that their God has blessed them with. When you have been praying to the same God but he mocks you for your insolence.

It’s strange. How? What creates confidence in them? How did they ignore their traumas in their mind and body to move forward? How do they not question the universe and God and divinely trust that they are perfect and their God is perfect so everything looks perfect even when it’s not. Their God preserves their image.

How? I want the secret formula too? I want the chalice of perfection. I have a lot of blessings that they have as well, a relationship, friends, family, but why does my relationship sometimes have farts and anger? Why don’t my friends go to Hawaii with me once a month? Why doesn’t my family always love me and look fun and sexy? How? How do they make everything look so easy?

It’s beyond a filter it’s in the phrasing too. It’s in the “The hubby and I have been blessed with a little one on the way!” Or “You’ll never guess we’re moving from NYC to LA blessed!” Or “Hey family I have a new opportunity here” and all of us are just dragged along for the ride and forced to congratulate and slow clap for their myriad of successes or else we are bitter bitches.

I’ve seen this jealousy take my friends under. I’ve seen it drive folks to intense alcoholism. This bitterness drove one of my closest friends to do heroin. This anguish and searching for the disguise of perfection has driven people I know to suicide. This clamoring for the how to guide to hiding ones flaws has locked others into seclusion and shame in their lack.

We become forgotten nomads with no social currency. We become the folks who only have photos of feral cats in a backyard. We work and toil and fade into the background. No one sees us. Society almost encourages us to die. We haven’t figured out the formula of how to hide and not heal. We are busy doing the most painful work of healing. Which is supposed to make us better and sexier but it really isolates us and makes us look grotesque. So we turn to vices in order to keep up an appearance or to fit into a mold, and since we are square pegs we do not sit well in these spaces.

I used to want to sit with the perfect people. I used to crave their adoration. I still do sometimes when I see a fit sexy couple, with abs, and a sexy New York apartment, and a cute dog, and a baby on the way, living their highest dreams. and I look at my soft body and the soft body of my partner and I think of our depression and day jobs. And I think of the mundane and the cats humping each other at 1 AM in my backyard. And I think of my dreams denied and deferred by traumatic experience. And I think of my love ignored by a God who seems to only favor those who have self esteem. I want a drop of that drive and desire to be seen as somebody. I used to and still do want that sometimes.

But when I see who is important. The folks I work with. The beauty of our soft lactose intolerant bodies. The power of the voice of a young person. The strength that they bring and the honor it is to be in their presence. When I see homeless folks hurting and in much deeper need. When I see strangers in the throes of addiction. When I see these invisible humans. That the perfect people literally have no eyes for. They may use them as a platform to say that they are caring, they may throw cash, but there is no heart in it. When I see that. I realize that being imperfect. Being ugly. Being different. Being human is sacrificing that notion. It’s sacrificing the filters for truth. When you can’t help but live in truth. Those sexy people disappear, and you want them to be with you and to validate you, but you also don’t. It’s strange.

I am one of the ugly, mentally ill, twisted, strange voices screaming into the void. We are not voiceless. We are infinite and the clamor of perfection drowns out our beautiful existence, but that is okay. This is my mantra and affirmation. That is okay.

I see you. If this is you. I hear you. If this is you. We know each other in our emptiness and struggle. We heal together. While perfection eludes us, we find peace and solace in the okayness of it all. Which is fine. And fine is good. Being fine in its own way is the answer to the how.

[empyreal-insights]

Dueling Destinies

i. 

In one of my Facebook groups, someone posed a question about "destiny" in the Yoruba context. The more I witness my life, the more I understand that this is another layer new world Africans may have to shapeshift around, or at least redefine.

In Yoruba cosmology, the English word "destiny" is a sort of catch-all to describe the reason(s) you decided to manifest as a human being on earth, and what you need to function effectively during your time here. 

As in most indigenous cultures, children with profound spiritual gifts are often recognized and trained - if not initiated - early. They may stray in adolescence and early adulthood, but many return to their spiritual roots because of this foundation.

So when Yoruba folks say, "Ifa initiation will give you your full destiny," I think it’s true for some. And, I wonder if it’s a best case scenario rooted in a social and cultural framework that supported such a path from the beginning.

ii. 

I never felt a Call on my life, but born in a different time and place, it likely would’ve been seen for me. 

The circumstances of my birth are a diviner’s dream: born after several miscarriages to an almost-30 year old mother into a family marked by premature death and clear connections to the unseen realm. I was intellectually precocious, emotionally sensitive, with a tuft of gray hair that never changed color. 

I had - as my grandmother and others said - been here before.

My mother says everyone knew I was "special," but the folks who may have been astute enough to explain further were gone before I could walk.  

Without that head start, I followed a path common to many on this side of the water: discovered the traditions in my 20s and initiated in my 30s, with plenty to heal by the time I stepped on the mat.* 

iii. 

When I initiated to Osun, I was at a low point. I was still grieving my aunt's passing, heartbroken over the loss of some important relationships, and feeling like my life was on hold. I broke down several times. 

Osun lifted my pain like you shake off blankets in the morning. Gently, with finality, She crumbled the walls around my heart and declared Herself the only armor I needed. I felt a lightness I’d assumed was gone forever. My entire life, there's been a sense of not belonging, and being much older than my chronological age. I knew too much, felt too much, and didn’t have words to describe any of it. Eventually I did enough self work to be all right most of the time, but my bad days could get very, very dark.

My "specialness" wasn't discouraged, but it wasn't honed, either; I struggled with feeling unseen and unheard. Because I wasn't the neediest, squeakiest wheel, and had no inclinations towards rebellion or defiance, my okayness was taken for granted. In many ways, I was fine, but I also had questions it took years to learn how to ask.  

Connecting with Egbe softened those blows. I saw and understood myself in ways I never thought I would. Messages from years of readings and talks with mentors and elders finally synthesized. 

My earthly family is a blessing, but I am a Spirit Child; I needed the support of my people in Orun to be whole here. 

iv.

Years after doing what I was "supposed" to do, destiny became a burden to slough off.  

I've struggled with that because I was told and taught that I was supposed to be more. I was raised to see things through, to seek stability and solid ground. The worst things I could appear to be were flighty, flaky, or foolish - no one had time for that, and the world around me wouldn’t forgive me for it.

And yet, I am not here to be something as specific as a doctor, "healer,” or someone's mother - although I could probably play with each of those identities and experiences if I chose.  

The essence of my spirit is water and aether, meant to pivot flawlessly, dream, shapeshift, create, and flow. These are also the parts of me that have been damaged by learning to live life on Earth.

It’s become crucial for me to enjoy and embrace life as it comes - to learn how to be here now - because by my very nature, I am not overly attached to life. 

I was called here and - for reasons still unknown to my conscious mind - decided to be the one that stayed. 

That choice created a situation whereby I am compelled to make peace with my soul’s distinct need for reconciliation and healing. How that “looks” to anyone is a moot point. 

For now, that reconciliation is the only “destiny” I feel fully equipped to focus on and fulfill with no burden, no pressure, and no worry.

And that is enough. 

--

* There’s a sliver of the Black american community that embraced continental and diasporan versions of African spirituality in the 70s, 80s, and even a bit earlier. But for the most part, my generation is the first to juggle ancestral traditions, western living, and the singularity of African-in-america identity. Even if we're not rejected outright by our families, few understand what the hell we're doing.

.

the rough draft (twitter thread)