Best posts made by Auspice

@SuperiorHuron said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

@Auspice I get pinterest crazy. I will go through picture after picture of things that hold my interest. For hours. I should show you. Im not even embarrassed. Books...When I told my boss about my ADHD diagnoses, she wasn't surprised. What I learned about myself during this pandemic is that I very much need routine. It lacked and I wasn't in a very good place mentally. I'm also very social. I had a great deal ripped away and I didn't handle anything well, so..I think when you learn more about YOU, the more you can work out an outlet that makes you happy.

Yeah, I need routines.

I had, at first, hoped that I would get stuff done. Write? Finish some projects?

Instead as time has gone on, I've slipped further into depression and just.... lack of doing anything. It's gotten really bad the past week.

I don't do Pinterest much. Mostly because I can't find an organizational method I'm happy with. I use it to FIND stuff, but I don't do my own boards much.

@buttercup

I understand the desire to be involved, to do things with family both.

But the health aspect shouldn't be ignored at all, IMO.

My state (and thus city) was one of the early ones to force itself open. And over the past couple of days, I've gotten sick. With that big tell-tale sign of loss of taste/smell. I'm putting in a request to be tested. I'm frustrated at the mere idea I may have it because I'm still not going out much, I'm still wearing a mask, but no one around me is and during my last visit to the store a bit over a week ago, people were even more up in my personal space than even before the pandemic.

And since studies are showing a lot of people are asymptomatic and don't even know they had it / were contagious: big crowds are even more a risk factor.

@Aria
SCA shit I'm assuming?

I've heard.... a lot of weird/gross racist and sexist stuff in the past year that has had me thinking 'I am glad I never got into SCA despite it seeming up my alley because this would be All Too Much'

@insomniac7809 said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

The 'time' thing has been interacting with quarantine in a weird way.

On the one hand, everyone else is FREAKING OUT that they've been stuck for months now, but for me, like, is that a thing? Y'know, time passing. Whatever.

On the other hand, without work forcing me to know what day it is and which of those days I need to be somewhere else, I have come adrift. Days start and end. My life is vaguely measured in podcasts.

I generally have no idea what day of the week it is. And most of the time, quarantine is pretty whatever.

But other weeks seem to go on forever and ever and ever (last week did for sure).

I feel like I'm losing against this virus.
I was starting to feel better, sense of smell/taste was coming back.

The past couple days I've felt worse. Today my sense of smell/taste are gone again and if I wasn't SO AWAKE mentally I'd be sleeping still even tho I slept until 4.

I desperately want to clean my apartment but I don't even have the energy to shower.

@Rinel

The fact that you're getting it checked is the important thing. I went through this a handful of years ago. Just follow up, do the thing.

@SilentHills said in MU* Gripes and Peeves:

I got high on a weed for the first time this weekend and I am suddenly really pissed off by anyone who has ever played an over the top dumb pothead. Looking at you, Jules.

Like, damn. All I did was get really chill about everything, eat for like four hours, and have a nap.

Can you actually smoke yourself retarded? Are past over the top pothead portrayals accurate? What is life?

tbh most people don't know how to RP being high.

source: have done more than just weed in my 20s.
HOWEVER, some people do have negative reactions to weed (paranoia, bad trips, etc) and I like to think the over-the-top portrayals are just this... people who have bad reactions (either due to an allergy, a bad reaction to chemical imbalances, etc) and shouldn't be smoking it in the first place.

@Tinuviel said in MU* Gripes and Peeves:

@Sunny said in MU* Gripes and Peeves:

Nurses are the best.

This is the golden truth in 99.999999% of circumstances.

It blows my mind how easy it can be to get a nurse practitioner at a place.
...and also how worried places are to suggest it.

'We're sorry but Dr. Soandso isn't taking new patients... but his nurse practitioner is?' and you can hear the tensing in their voice.
Like yes. Please. Let me see the nurse who can prescribe things for me, who has been on the front lines (as it were). 100%.

As for weed: different strains do different things, for one. Indica and sativa, yadda yadda. Those who take it for pain management are usually gonna be taking an indica (or a hybrid). Those are the sedating, calming ones that usually have more of a 'body high' (and you can, if you're in a place with legalized, get ones bred specifically for this purpose). If you've smoked and just felt sleepy: it was probably an indica.

Sativas are the ones that get that more hyper, giggly, head-high (and might cause hyper-focusing since it's the 'creative' strain).

I tend to go for indicas myself (or sometimes a bit of a hybrid, like 80/20 just to keep from getting too zzzzzzzz) because of that functional high. My preferred strain is actually Blackwater (https://www.leafly.com/strains/blackwater). It doesn't get me as sleepy as it does some, but the relaxation/stress relief/pain relief is on point.

But seriously, if you live in an area where it's legalized: the people in stores are fucking awesome. You just say 'I'm looking for <X>...' and they will work with you however long to find what's perfect for you. That's how I found the CBD gel I like, my preferred strain, etc. Because of the awesome employees at the store I'd go to in Seattle.

@Wretched said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

why would you call me out like this

@faraday said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

It's like being sad versus having depression. One is more severe and chronic than the other.

Or even chemical depression vs situational depression. One will improve and pass with time or improvement of the situation. Example there is: I have no job rn, it makes me depressed despite my anti-depressants, because it's a different kind of depression than the chemical depression the meds are for.

With the ADHD vs someone who.... 'gets distracted easily sometimes' is they can, say, focus when they need to. Think of that person at work who does spend a lot of time chatting with people who walk by or often goes over and chats with others but when they've got to knuckle down and get stuff done: they do it!

And then there's people like us. We just... can't. We basically have to ride the wave and hope maybe that hyperfocus will hit. The rest of the time is like this unending frustration of 'why can't I just fucking do what I need to do when I need to do it?!' as you watch deadlines come and go. It's not that you're lazy. It's not that you put it off. It's that you literally couldn't handle all that shit. You tried and you tried and you tried and you maybe broke down in tears in the bathroom twenty times and you hate telling your boss for the Nth time that it's just a bad ADHD day-

I mean I'm getting anxious just trying to explain it. But yes.

Yes. The difference between 'easily distracted but can get to it when need be' and 'my brain is a bag of marbles that just puked all over the floor and I just want to lie down and die'

@Aria said in Random funny:

There is a 4th.

Dwarves: I learned how to cast in resin to make my own dice.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saharan-dust-plume-gorilla-dust-cloud-drifting-united-states/

Here I am fighting to recover my ability to breathe from covid and this is incoming. Oof

Please be careful anyone else who is in the path of this cloud. They're saying it's dangerous even if you don't have pre existing conditions that affect the lungs.

@GreenFlashlight said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

Do any of you ever find that you can't focus on a big picture because you're hyperfocused on one part of it? Like, if there are two people on a screen I'm looking at, I focus on one of them. If I'm trying to hold eye contact, I have to focus on one eye. Stuff like that. Does it sound familiar to any of you?

I'm not sure it is possible to look at both eyes but I wonder if it is and then I stress out about it so I look at peoples noses instead

In interviews I tend to look at a point over their shoulder but I had someone tell me this is probably why I don't get hired because of the lack of eye contact but which fucking eye do you look at?!

@Atomic My black kitty will wedge herself between me and the keyboard, curling up in my arms.
Must be a black cat thing.

@Wretched

Apparently my spoken vocabulary is fairly extensive; moreso than I often realize. I got accused way too often by my ex-husband (and some of our mutual friends, even one who also considered themselves a writer) that I 'purposefully' used words they didn't know.

And I didn't, I really didn't. I just used whatever words came to mind (and thus were right for the situation).

y'all I am kinda in love with the Baby Sitter's Club

my childhood

ETA: Starting to realize I love everything Marc Evan Jackson is in.

Keanu is awesome.

And @insomniac7809 I did reference Bella, aka training wheels for teaching young girls that they should let men gaslight and abuse them

we're all presented with garbage role models

At least Bumblebee gave us Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie instead of another Sam.

I picked up a freelance writing gig.

I hate it. I am very close to going 'Look, I've already put over 10 hours into this. It's not worth $90 anymore' to the guy that hired me. Whoever he has as his 'editor' for the writers is a fucking idiot.

Edit me for grammar. Edit me for phrasing. Edit me for legibility. But if you can't follow the bouncing ball of the topic and concepts like 'According to studies [link]....' have you whining at me 'We can't make unfounded claims!' (lady it's not unfounded the link to the fucking study is right there I'm not going to rehash the entire medical study in copy that's supposed to be 'lighthearted' and 'easily consumed' jfc) maybe you need a different line of work.

If you're editing for content as well as grammar, you need to do the research on the topic, too.

Some of the things that make it clear that I'm on the spectrum and ADHD:

• I have fabric issues. I don't like the feeling of fabric-on-fabric (if you get this, you get this). If a certain fabric bothers me, I cannot 'just deal.' Part of why I love Squishables (I've gotten a lot of people hooked on these things recently </no shame>) is that they are so fucking touchable and soft and pretty much satisfy that need for something to feel 'right.'
• I can get 'locked in' to doing something and if I get interrupted, it's not just breaking the cycle (like an ADHD hyperfocus)... I actually get agitated. I feel like the ADHD actually helps me balance here.
• I like my routine. I like it a lot. ADHD may not make it a SCHEDULE type of routine, but I have my routine. I play X game on my phone before sleep, I do Y things when I wake up in the morning. I put my shoes in Z location. My keys are always in my RIGHT pocket. I always sit on the LEFT side of the couch (yes, I have a 'but that's my seat').
• Similar-ish to above... I can't handle people standing/walking behind me. That flips the agitation trigger. I know that isn't an ADHD thing. And it's not really an... anxiety thing. But I feel an almost physical crawling sensation when someone is behind me. So I tend to sit with my back to a wall in restaurants, I don't like open floor plans in offices where people can just wander behind me. I don't even like if a friend is leaning over my shoulder to look at my screen when I invite them to do so (I'll lean to the side so that I don't have that creepy-crawling sensation).

There's probably more. But, like ADHD........women and autism is so different than men and autism and welp, guess which was used to decide the standard.

@Wretched said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

@Auspice Good god if you are standing/sitting behind me while I'm on the computer I will not react well. That agitation is real.

I think a lot of those you are describing have been pretty typical of my experience. I hate 'schedules' but i have 'things' 'patters' 'spots' etc. that are toitally irrational and IMPORTANT.

The Locked in thing I get lots too. I'm IN THE MIDDLE OF MY THING FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF>

My parents always gave me shit for the seating thing.
'What are you doing, pretending you're some character from one of your books?'

But my father is so so so neurotypical and doesn't even try to comprehend even if my mother has major depression that has eaten at her all her life. But he's so domineering he gets her to think the same way. My one brother with very classic ADHD has never been treated for it...not because of the whole 'oh they over-medicate kids for this' but 'if anyone in our church finds out one of my kids is on medication for some brain damage bullcrap, they won't respect me anymore'

I keep wishing he'd (he's 24) move out and get a place of his own, but his ADHD is so bad he can't drive. So he's sort of beholden to our other brother (they work at the same place) to give him rides to/from work. If I was in a financial position to do so and could line up a job for him, I'd get him out here. Push some more independence at him. Get him a damn psychiatrist who would get him on the meds he needs.