i hate when ppl say shit like BUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS ALTER YOUR BRAIN FUNCTION UNNATURALLY READ UP ON IT NURGGHH like yeah, youre right, they force it to produce serotonin so i can function, similar to how i take thyroxine bc my thyroid doesnt fucking make the right shit, similar to how people with diabetes take insulin, similar to how people with low iron take iron supplements, you thin slice of nutloaf
do you yell at people for eating food bc their body doesnt just naturally photosynthesize energy on its own
i just Cannot deal w/ gritty edgy Ultimately There Is No Hope And Everything Is Shit type of plots like my mood and morale are already low as is in real life and i don’t.. need the fiction i consume often to cope to be that disheartening? idk like. i just can’t do it anymore. i can’t put myself through it. i know it’s Not That Deep but also i just love.. corny cliché Hope Wins types of stories? it’s not even corny or cliché to me? it’s just. cathartic.
Look, there’s nothing inherently Deep about cynism and pessimism and there’s nothing inherently shallow about hope and optimism. We gotta get away from that idea.
cleaning with ADHD is a nightmare. it’s an endless cycle of finding a half-finished chore and stopping the one you were already working on, then remembering that something else needs to be done and getting started on that, then finding half-finished chore and
i have the solution! i call it ‘junebugging’.
have you ever seen a junebug get to grips with a window screen? it’s remarkably persistent, but not very focused. all that matters is location.
how to junebug: choose the location you feel you can probably get some shit done on today. be specific. not ‘the bathroom’ but ‘the bathroom sink’. you are not choosing a range, you are choosing a center; you will move around, but your location is where you’ll keep coming back to. mentally stick a pin in it. consider yourself tethered to that spot by a long mental bungee cord.
go to your location. look at stuff. move stuff around. do a thing. get distracted. remember you’re junebugging the bathroom sink and go back there. look at it some more. do a different thing. get distracted. get a sandwich. remember you’re junebugging and go back to the bathroom sink.
nt’s will go crazy watching you, and if they demand to know When You Will Be Done you will probably have to roll them in a carpet and stuff them up the chimney. you’re done when you feel done, or you’re too bored to live, or it’s bedtime, or any number of other markers, you get to pick. but the thing is, by returning repeatedly to that one spot, you harness the ‘hyperactivity’ part instead of wasting all that energy battling with the ‘attention deficit’ part.
not only will the bathroom sink almost certainly be clean, and probably the mirror and soap dish too, you might’ve swapped in a fresh toothbrush, a new soap, you might’ve unclogged the drain – you will probably also have cleaned or fixed up several things in the near vicinity, or in the path between the sink and where you get the fresh toothbrush, or maybe you did your grocery shopping cuz you were out of soap, or maybe you couldn’t find a clean hand towel and ended up doing laundry.
this is good. you got shit done! it wasn’t necessarily Cleaned The Bathroom in the way nt’s think of it, but screw ‘em. things are better than they were.
plus you worked off enough energy to be able to sleep. which is not small potatoes when living the ADHD life. 😀
I do this thing where if i have to go to a family event where I will be expected to be a girl I pretend I am a SPY and I am IN DISGUISE AS A TEEN GIRL and my mission is to EXTRACT INFORMATION FROM MY GRANDPARENTS without giving away my real identity. works every time.
your dress and makeup is now a DISGUISE
your ‘birth name’ is now an ALIAS
getting told by your parents to be nice and not yell at anyone being racist is MISSION BRIEFING
your entire extended family are now FOREIGN DIGNITARIES and you gotta make it thru the evening without being discovered as a RADICAL SPY
carrying a small water pistol and one of those fake-lipstick pens in your purse helps to get in the zone. the best part of being a spy is the nifty gadgets everyone knows that.
BONUS if you have to bring a friend of another gender with you to pretend to be your boyfriend. you are both PARTNER SPIES and one of you has to be the cranky but soft-hearted veteran and the other has to be the endearingly-assholeish rookie.
Seems like actually a great way to deal with dysphoria
it’s also a great way to deal with social anxiety. i get through socialising outside my comfort zone by treating it like cosplay.
i saw this post earlier about therapists and it reminded me of my old therapist paul, who in my opinion is one of the greatest men alive and who did not put up with my bullshit for even one second
anyway i go in to see paul one week in the summer of 2016, and i’m doing my usual bullshit which consists of me talking shit about myself, and paul is staring at me, and then he cuts me off and says that he’s got a new tool for helping people recognize when they’re using negative language, and gets up and goes over to his desk
and i’m like alright hit me with that sweet sweet self-help article my man, because i’m a linguistic learner and whenever paul’s like here i have a tool for you to use it’s pretty much always an article or a book or something
paul opens a drawer, takes something out, and turns back around. i stare.
i say, paul.
is that a nerf gun.
yeah, says paul.
i say, are you gonna shoot me with a nerf gun in this professional setting.
he happily informs me that that’s really up to me, isn’t it. and sits back down. and gestures, like, go ahead, what were you saying?
and i squint suspiciously and start back up about how i’m having too much anxiety to leave the house to run errands, like it was a miracle to even get here, like i’ve forgone getting groceries for the past week and that’s so stupid, what a stupid issue, i’m an idiot, how could i–
a foam dart hits me in the leg.
i go, hey! because my therapist just shot me in the leg. paul blinks at me placidly and raises an eyebrow. i squint again.
i say, slowly, it’s– not a stupid issue, i’m not stupid, but it’s frustrating me and i don’t want it to be a problem i’m having.
no dart this time. okay. sweet.
so the rest of the hour passes with me intermittently getting nailed with tiny foam darts and then swearing and then fixing my language and, wouldn’t you know it, i start liking myself a little more by the end of the session, which is mildly infuriating because paul can tell and he’s very smug about it
anyway i leave his office and the lady having the next appointment walks in and i hear what’s all over the floor? and paul very seriously says cognitive behavioral therapy tools.
tbh the worst thing about being a self aware mentally ill person is that people assume that because you understand your illness you’re automatically able to actually apply your knowledge to your life and cure yourself
Do I know my brain isn’t making the most sense right now? Yes. Can I stop it? No.
hot take: hrt, gender therapy and trans surgeries should be free
if cis people don’t have to pay to have a body that doesn’t make them dysphoric, neither should trans people
So by that logic does that mean that I should get anti-depressants and all the other pills for my mental issues for free because the people who don’t suffer from them don’t have to pay to have them?
Steel Phoenix Studios 