Posts made by Auspice

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

Sad for all the struggles folks have gone through.

Like many adults, I didn't realize I had ADHD until my kids were diagnosed, then I realized that they were struggling with the same things I have my whole life. My parents still don't believe that I have it ("But you were such a good student!") but I'm pretty much the poster girl for adult ADD symptoms, and they've been there for as long as I can remember.

Some coping mechanisms:

• Timers. We have an alexa at home and 90% of my use is to set timers. "Remind me in 60 minutes to change the laundry." "Set a 20 minute timer" (for my kids to stop playing video games). etc.
• Fidgets. I spent my life drumming on tables and destroying straw wrappers. One year I was so bored in meetings I started practicing writing the alphabet left-handed. Nowadays though there are some really cool fidget gizmos. I keep this one in my purse.
• Background Noise. I have a hard time maintaining focus in silence. There has to be some kind of background noise for part of my brain to focus on. Music without words works best, or a movie I've seen 78 times before.
• Visual Cues. I assemble things and put them by the door the night before so I remember them. I'm the queen of post-it notes, all over the house.

Getting accommodations for kids in schools is a PITA.

I do so many of these, too.
I wish Google Home had tags on its timers because I've had multiple ones running before and uh... when ti goes off I don't always remember what I set it for. Oops.

But yes. Laundry. Stuff I'm cooking. Something I need to do (like, uh, leave the house on time).

I have a few fidget spinners, myself. I keep the fidget cube in my purse. I've recently gotten into cardistry and that keeps my hands occupied pretty well (with a side-effect of finally helping stretch out the scar tissue on them from carpal tunnel surgery!).

I, too, end up with post-its everywhere. I've actually considered putting up some of the whiteboard paper I have (...esp. after the cat clawed down the last one) in a vertical orientation in the hallway just so I can leave lists there. But it's not uncommon for me to have a post-it by the door of 'Remember: <list>' and I have a big alligator clip on the wall next to the door to pin things under, too.

For any trips I take, I have a pre-made, color-coded spreadsheet to fill out. It has columns for: to pack, laptop bag, what to wear, toiletries, and a to-do list.

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

@Auspice That is heavy. I'm so sorry you went through that.

It's just a snapshot of shit my dad has done.

I've gone through... a lot of emotions with him. For a brief time, in my late 20s, I went through a 'Well, they were young. They had a couple kids before they were even 30 and I'd probably fuck up with kids that young.' But now in my 30s, I'm like: fuck's sake, I'd at least have compassion and do my best even if I made dumb mistakes sometimes. And he's still just a total dick about so many other things (like his treatment of my mom as referenced).

It's just an addition to the pile of why I don't interact with my family much. Of my four siblings, two of my brothers are pretty cool. I keep waiting for them to move out (both are in their early 20s) so I can maybe try to have more than a 'we text sometimes' relationship with them. Someday.

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

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

forcing me to go through exorcisms because demons.

Ultra conservative religious parents.

Every 'negative' behavior we (mostly I - my brothers got the good ol' 'boys will be boys' outlook) had as kids was met with a 'must be demons.' I think ultimately it was easier on my father's ego. My father's priorities in life are:

His reputation / how others view him
His job
His faith
My mother
Me and my siblings

We've always, always come last. So whenever we (esp. me, as the oldest) did something that upset the order, that risked (in his eyes) making him look bad... it was a big deal. And I think blaming it on 'demons' was his way of looking at everyone in the church and going 'I'm a good man and a good father so this is Satan targeting me and trying to make things hard for me!' rather than ever having to admit to his own faults.

This is the man who, the last time I really saw them (not counting the whirlwind 2 days of my grandmother's funeral) was when they visited me here in TX and during a few days in San Antonio, he would not walk with my mother, who walks slower than he does. He kept just steamrolling ahead, leaving her behind. And oh man she looked so dejected.

I called him out on it. Like, dude, why won't you walk with your wife?! And he just whined that she walks too slow for him yaddayadda. Here we are at the Alamo and every. other. family/couple. is walking together. Not him. It's just me and my mom while he storms off ahead. And I tried again later after she'd told me that he was always like that. Just a look at her, these are the years you two get to spend together after your kids are grown up. You took this trip together (I was like, the tail end of a road trip). Please actually pay attention to my mother.

He responded like any grown male wou- no, wait, he didn't. He stomped around like a dejected child and 'proved' he could walk faster than us by sitting on a bench and glaring while she and I began the walk back to the hotel (which we purposefully took our time of, enjoying the weather).... then taking out his phone, using GPS to find the best route, and rushing back. We got there right after he did, covered in sweat as he was, with him going: "See! This is why I can't wait for you!"

So, yeah. My dad. Real winner. And was convinced that my mental health issues and struggles as a kid/teenager were the product of DEMONS because otherwise he'd have to admit there was something legitimately wrong with me.

After a suicidal episode at the age of 15, when I finally got my first trip to a therapist (hard to when you're 15 and live in an area with no public transit: sort of rely on your parents at that point)... He had to drive me on my 2nd visit. I got in the car after the appointment and he looks at me and goes: 'So you're fixed now, right? You're not going to try making the family look bad anymore?' Because, again, he framed my attempt to kill myself as an inconvenience on him and a risk to his public image.

And right now I have to work with him to plan this surprise visit to my mother. I just keep that mantra: it's for her it's for her it's for her.

I didn't get a diagnosis until I was 30.

I grew up with a father whose opinion of mental health (and related) matters ran from:
'You'll get over it.'
'You're doing this on purpose to ruin the family.'
and forcing me to go through exorcisms because demons.

Finding out I had ADD and am on the spectrum... explained a lot. I mean, it doesn't fix things, but it helped. Because I stopped feeling like this worthless loser who couldn't handle what came naturally and easily to everyone else.

I have to have music while I drive or else I get distracted. I have to keep lists (lists upon lists upon lists) for everything or else my day-to-day life falls apart. I have so may coping mechanisms at this point.

I still haven't tried medication for the ADD. I only just got on anxiety meds last year (after so many doctors insisted that I just needed to 'give the anti-depressants more time'). I did try talking to one doctor briefly about it, explaining how some days I just can't fucking cope and how I was afraid for my job (some days I'd do great; others I'd get jack and shit done because of an inability to focus on any one thing at all) and her response was: 'You just need more sleep.'

I haven't had the emotional strength to go through that again (and right now I don't have the insurance, so...). My ADD isn't a 'lack of sleep' goddamnit.

@Rinel said in Good TV:

I don't really feel the Magicians finale fits the trope. I'm going to steal from a reddit comment that summarized how I felt about it much better than I could:

HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE AND ALSO A LOT OF WORDS:

***SERIOUSLY THESE ARE BIG SPOILERS***

click to show

There is this new found idea that any queer, mentally ill, whatever-isn’t-a-straight-white-absolutely neurotypical-dudebro characters can NEVER die or have anythingtoo bad can happen to them. That’s not how it works and it’s not how it should work. For writers and creators no character should be immortal or untouchable. People have created this notion that “well this character was important to me and I related to them because of this or that so you cannot touch them because now my representation is gone and you’re evil for it”.

Every character in fiction is going to resonate with you or a group of people somewhere for some reason. The more limitations we put on creators for who they can and cannot kill the less of those characters we are going to get. Think about it seriously. Out of the main group who could they kill without backlash? Stella who is Native American? Hale who is openly queer? Arjun who has dual citizenship in America and India? Summer who is Hispanic and Indian? Jade who is part Israeli? Yes, Quentin was queer and had a romantic relationship with Eliot. That’s canon. The fandom cannot swoon over A Life in the Day and say how beautiful and perfect it was and then when Q dies it’s no longer a good thing- it’s queerbaiting. In the finale the pain between Eliot and Q is the most obvious. Even above Alice! Q is devastated when he see Eliot. It might not be the conclusion you wanted, but it’s a really touching one if you think about it. Bury Your Gays is a little more complicated than what fandom seems to think it means. According to TVTropes.org, Bury Your Gays is, “the presentation of deaths of LGBT characters where these characters are nominally able to be viewed as more expendable than their heteronormative counterparts. In this way, the death is treated as exceptional in its circumstances.” Quentin, in no way, is what anyone considered more expendable than the other characters especially because he isn’t the only queer character. So are we not touching anyone because creators cannot kill anyone? We can’t beg and plead for more representation and then have a show with a really diverse cast and then have fandom freak out if one of these diverse characters is killed.

Regarding the mental health issues:

Okay. This is pretty serious. A huge part of who Q is is someone who struggles with mental illness. He’s tried to kill himself, been instituted, meds, therapy, everything. Having him ask Penny40 if he just finally found a way to kill himself was what pissed me of the most. Then I rewatched that scene over and over. Secrets Taken to the Grave is there to let people process all those feelings. Quentin’s ultimate question was “am I a hero or am I just suicidal?” Penny40 takes him to show what a major impact he made on his love ones. He was a mentally ill hero. That’s who Quentin was. He showed us you can be both. Isn’t that amazing? To know that your mental illness doesn’t have to be “cured” for you to be a hero and to have positively changed so many people’s lives? That’s amazing. Another thing I want to touch on with this issue is something I noticed really early on in the series. They are NO JOKE about giving viewers crisis hotlines. 13 Reasons Why is an entire show about suicide and they didn’t put anything about it until there was major backlash. Syfy has handled difficult storylines with the class to put crisis information after many of their episodes. They wouldn’t have done all of that for the past 4 years if they didn’t care about their fans. If you are suffering from any mental health issues, you are valid. You have every right to be affected by anything you consume. Music, books, movies, TV shows, whatever. You do not have to explain or feel bad about it. You can be mentally ill and be a positive force in this world. As someone with Bipolar I and horrible panic attacks, I was actually touched because sometimes I think everything I touch is tainted because how can anything I do be good when I don’t even feel like I’m good enough to be alive?

***=Ok, so, my thoughts in this vein More spoilers for Magicians follow...***

I've got a lot of ground work around here... somewhere for a FF game that would be station-based and allow a sort of central-hub for RP + for people to have their ship crews.

...I just didn't wanna write all the website material needed. I just wanted to make the game and start running shit.

@Aria

I am hella grateful that I get to go to a Thursday evening showing. I will be SUPER TIRED and risk falling asleep (because homg those recliner seats) since I work 7a-3p... but man. I was looking at a schedule of 'I dunno when I'll see it' but, local buddy who Twitch streams was doin a giveaway-ish thing (more like an auction but!) and only two of us were 'bidding' on the tickets. I had lowballed cuz, well, what was I gonna do with two tickets?! But it was for charity overall so I wanted to put in a few bucks nonetheless (and no one else had bid at all yet, so I felt I had nothing to lose).

The person that won actually contacted me later to say that they only needed one ticket also and would I like to go with them?

Uhm. Yes. Of course.

@Arkandel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@TiredEwok said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I was unfortunately not as lucky with GoT (am waiting for the last season to conclude so I can binge watch the whole series since I fell behind by a couple) thanks to the title of a Yahoo article on it's main page, however. FFS.

The clickbait articles on Yahoo! are merciless. Those motherfuckers haven't ran into a spoiler they wouldn't use to grab attention yet and they do it right in their titles. "Six Reasons Why Thanos Just Killed Half The Universe".

They know they're no longer a relevant site and are just grasping at straws.

Could I have the ship Inara stole from me out of jealousy back?

"Air is beautiful, yet you cannot see it. It's soft, yet you cannot touch it. Air is a little like my brain.”

***And it goes toooooo...***

My entry into the fun:

“The more time you spend awake the more time you spend asleep.”

***Survey says...***

@Derp said in General Video Game Thread:

I want Days Gone, like, right now. Now now.

But I should also finish Resident Evil 2 first.

God. Decisions.

WWZ is top of my list right now.

@Bananerz said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Auspice Oh wow, you caught a wild shopping cart in its natural habitat and free from the cart corral slavery. Be careful, these have a tendency to cause bumps in cars nearby.

By the way, that's a very clean parking lot.

Could be clean due to the heavy rain storm we had a few days ago.

I was stunned more by how many people were just... swerving around the cart than the cart itself.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd7v7nQLQGwKQxfPtUPz6i1h3-JVxBx0D

Playlist of movie youtubers discussing great scenes from the MCU.
May not be for you since it's analytical stuff discussing how scenes are constructed, but I live for this sort of shit.

@Thenomain said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Auspice

Entirely possible that it rolled out there. I've seen that happen many, many times.

They'd still have needed to leave it in a really bad place for that to have happened. Target doesn't have outside carts and there wasn't a cart return on that aisle.

So I'm leaving Target and in my rearview, I witness this (I'd been on the other side of the parking lot...). I ended up turning around, parking, and going to move it. People were just swerving around it!

I've seen some really shitty cart placements in my time (2nd retail job I had, someone opted to toss a cart on top of a pile of plowed snow), but this takes the cake.

That's just fucking malicious.

@Jaded said in General Video Game Thread:

@Jennkryst
Do you use KB&M for Elite Dangerous when you play or do you use a flightstick setup?

And if it is a flightstick set up do you have any good low budget recommendations?

I'm not @Jennkryst, but I found it impossible to play with a KB&M (I know someone who does and I don't get it). I can't afford the HOTAS I want, so I play with an XB1 controller. I find it works pretty well for me at least.

However, combat is still tricky since fewer buttons/toggles, but I use an AI to assist.

https://www.hcsvoicepacks.com/

I have ASTRA and she's lovely. (They have AIs voiced by the likes of Shatner, Nimoy, Michael Dorn.....so so many, take your pick)

@Bad-at-Lurking said in Saving Pages to the Database:

I'm not sure I'd ever want to look at user pages.

Other people's TS is a lot like other people's vacation vids. Theoretically you know it exists, but nobody else wants to see that stuff.

I do.

If popcorn is provided.

My vote was to make it so that games can enable it on their own basis, like most any other feature. Which I imagine you'd do anyway.

I know some people wouldn't be a fan, but I think enough are that it's a good idea. I'd love to be able to page someone who is "offline" and have it waiting for them. @goodstarbuck and I talk back and forth a bit during our work days, for example, and it's sometimes bouncing between phone mu and web client and man, I'd love if I paged him while offline and instead of just being told he's not online I got a message like: 'Sol is not currently online, but your message has been stored in their inbox for when they next connect.'

So it could be viewed on game or the portal.