okay. i know it’s a very bad idea to seek mental health advice from the internet, especially tumblr of all places, but i have a genuine question about this.
actually, before i get too far, i guess i should add some context about myself:
i’m fairly talkative in a certain sense. i like talking. if i start talking about something i like, or if i get excited while talking, i can talk a lot. when i’m alone, i tend to talk to myself a lot. just verbalizing thoughts, mostly; talking myself through a strategy, just voicing my thoughts as i play through a video game, or sometimes just babbling as though i’m talking to someone else. this is a frequent thing and not the root of my concern.
course, sometimes i talk a little less in public or in certain social situations if i’m not “invited” to speak too (more than just being spoken to first, but that’s another explanation i don’t want to go into right now), but i’ve always been like that; something, something, i know it’s more about social anxiety or something that i know i inherited and is a different discussion for a different day.
so, every now and then i have these days where, for lack of a better description, talking feels like it takes too much energy. even that doesn’t feel like it explains it properly but. like the same struggle to get out of bed on a rough day. like somehow speaking, the act of opening my mouth and forcing words out of my throat, takes too many spoons. the same way it feels like taking a shower or brushing your teeth has too many steps despite it being a simple process when your depression’s acting up (we’ll get back to this comparison in a minute).
i can tell when these days come on before i even have to speak to someone; it feels like my words are stuck in my throat. i mean that physically; there’s not actually something in my throat, but there’s a weight of some sort.
i’ve taken to calling these days “quiet days,” since this feeling affects just about everything associated with talking; making myself talk is a struggle; i can’t even talk to myself and all those monologues and discussions happen inside my head instead, but i can’t verbalize them; i don’t want people to talk to me on these days, as in there’s a deliberate, subconscious feeling already there on those days, not that i’m not wanting to talk because of the other feelings; actively listening to and comprehending things people say is also an effort to do, and i tend to tune out my music or whatever background noise i set for myself more than usual; i’ve recently discovered that this same feeling is applied to singing, much to my dismay, because i found this out on a day i kinda wanted to sing.
it’s not that i can’t speak on these days, i can physically make myself if i have to, it just takes more conscious effort sometimes than something like speaking should.
now, i used to chalk this up to being standard nonverbal bouts. i’d heard those were common among neurodivergents, and while i’m not officially diagnosed with anything (classic “everyone does that”/“that’s just something you got from me” type childhood), a lot of symptoms for both ADHD and autism (that i’ve heard of/looked into) match up pretty sharply with me.
however, no accounts from actually autistic people that i’ve read who go nonverbal at times really match up with my experiences. for me, it’s never a response to stress, anxiety, or overstimulation; it’s just something that happens on any given day and sometimes ebbs and flows throughout the day (as in sometimes it’s easier in some parts of the day, but not others, without any particular cue), and it’s never me going absolutely nonverbal, just a preference not to speak from it feeling like it’s too much to do sometimes.
remember that comparison i made to having to speak on “quiet days” feeling like trying to do basic things on bad depression days? yeah, i noticed on a day it hit that it felt very much like that, because i did feel it earlier that day; i found trying to make myself sing or even talk to myself out loud somehow felt like a process with too many steps and i didn’t have enough energy, just like trying to get out of bed that morning (to the point that i didn’t “get up” until that afternoon).
so, all that text and explanation leads to my one question: are these bouts and “quiet days” more from “going nonverbal” as a “symptom” of autism, or simply a symptom of my depression? or can it be chalked up to anything else at all? i’ve never seen or read anything about this on either side, and if it’s something from my depression, then that’s gonna make me take it much more seriously than i have been in the past. or like, is it just me and not anything at all?
any advice appreciated 🙏
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do you have any hcs for barnacles and dashi ? I'm rewatching it and many episodes start with the two of them in the main area , oftentimes there's a third person involved but it's always the two of them so they must spend alot of time around each other :O 10 / 10 bonding
Had to think hard about this since Dashi's role in the main series is so small—but you're actually so right 👀 10/10 buddies 👍
You'll get my headcanons I promise but first you gotta listen to me infodump, okay? Deal:
I personally headcanon that Dashi was one of the first Octonauts, she hasn't been around a super long time- but at least long enough that she was probably around for the first Octopod, and that would give her and Barnacles (and the other OGs) plenty of time to get close.
We know Inkling canonically founded the Octonauts, but I imagine that it was actually Barnacles who picked out the crew—over various fateful encounters (Kwazii, Peso), or already knowing them (Tweak)—with the two exceptions of Dashi and Shellington.
Shellington heard about them through the kelp vine by pure chance, and got himself a job via determination. Then, at some point—he recommended Dashi to Barnacles or Inkling, and got her a position as an intern. (He knew her through her photography; she took pictures for him once or something like that.)
I also headcanon they weren't called The Octonauts yet at that point. I headcanon that Dashi came up with the "Octonauts" name during her first few days, and they kept it. (Coincidentally, the first Octopod crashed during those first few days. T'was completely unrelated, I promise 😅)
Fast forward: I've been thinking about Dashi in AnB a lot lately, and the one question that keeps coming up is: "Why did Barnacles make her the Captain of the Octoray?"
They haven't addressed it in the show yet, and it felt a little bit like the writers just wanted her to Do Something, y'know? So I went back to rewatch some of her main series episodes, and this scene from The Surfing Snails stuck out:
This scene shows how much he trusts her. He trusts her to make the right calls, and to be careful. He shows this trust in her again in the Wild Windstorms:
"...I'm ready for this!"
"I know you are, Dashi."
I REALLY wish they had spent more time giving her some kind of arc, showing this trust being built. She absolutely deserved an arc like Peso's, where we could've seen her growth and her bond with Barnacles getting stronger. It would've made the Octoray thing make much more sense, and I would've loved to actually SEE her evolution from "getting stuck in a whale shark" to "inventing stuff with Tweak" to the level of respect that Barnacles clearly has for her in S4 and Beyond, but instead it feels like all that stuff happened off-screen.
I also wanna point out real quick; that Dashi is one of the select few characters to ever call Barnacles by his first name only. This is something that the writers frequently use to emphasize closeness between Barnacles and someone else (Kwazii, Natquik, etc), and Dashi has done it twice. I'll admit I thought it was an error the first time, but then I caught her doing it again in Sac Actun. SO CLEARLY THEY ARE CLOSE. YES? WE AGREE. YES.
ok I'm done. pleasure doing business with you 🤝
*slams hands down on table* MISC. HEADCANON TIME ‼️ (which technically, could all totally be canon until the writers finally decide to give us real information ✨)
She has 100% read ALL of his books and journals, at least twice. Sometimes he gives them to her so she can beta read them, and she's also helped edit a few.
She has written her own journals, mostly in the form of scrapbooks, that she shares with him too. He has a first edition signed copy of one of them.
She made friendship bracelets for everyone on the ship after the Octopod was rebuilt, and he keeps his on his desk. It's still in mint condition.
I feel like at least ONE of the cameras in her collection was a gift from him.
She is trained on how to steer the Octopod manually. Considering the only two on board at the time who knew how to do it were Barnacles and Tweak—her showing slight interest was the only convincing he needed to teach her.
Sadly, she's never needed to use this skill. Yet.
She learned how to play harmonica when he decided to learn accordion, so they could duet together, but she got the hang of it much faster than he did.
They work out together sometimes. She's much stronger than she looks—and has won an arm wrestling match against him at LEAST once. She's also beat him in a foot race; it was almost a very close tie, and she needed to lay down for an hour after—but she did it. He will never live either of these down.
They definitely gossip in HQ sometimes, when it's just the two of them.
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