#Because I am a professional adult

[curioscurio]

Reading some more books about autism ! I don't quite know if I'm on the spectrum (a lot of tests seem to lean towards yes) but still! A lot of them make the very lonely person inside me feel seen and understood a little more than before :]

#im not gonna lie im a little hesitant to get seriously tested. a lot of professionals think its a trendy tik tok thing and i have a feeling #that i wouldnt be taken seriously anyway #besides in the us theres pretty much no benefit to being professionally diagnosed as an adult and only consequences #i also think i need to find a therapist who specializes in cptsd cuz boy howdy. theres a lot of other stuff underlying that has sat dusty #in my brain for a long time #i just need a psychologist thats willing to get down and dirty with my trauma because i sure am not good at it on my own #also if anyone knows anytging about house fires leaving you technically homeless at the age of 9 and how that affected you in life. #shoot it my way lol

[jackklinemybeloved]

ame worlds beyond number is soooo non-binary coded To Me.

#it’s like. hm. #like that thing of when you’re a kid and you don’t have the expectations to Fit In to the gender binary quite yet #and you can run around and be loud and rough and dirty and no one cares because you’re a seven year old girl #and then you grow up and people ridicule you for being outside of the binary through adolescence #and then as an adult you learn to perform gender for the sake of your community #(thinking of ame’s outfit being pretty hyper feminine and the way her personality as an adult contrasts with her kid personality; #like because of both her position as a witch and a woman she needs to be calm and professional and a caretaker and a mediator and…) #idk. #I’m just thinking about the 14 year old ame scene again it was A Lot #‘she’s not a girl- she’s a witch!’ sparked this post btw. #worlds beyond number #also I get such gender envy from children’s adventure ame and it’s because she reminds me of me as a kid #I want that gender back ok!!!! #twtwatwo #ame wbn

[jaerie]

Woodlands Texas - July 8th, 2023 

#louis tomlinson #fitfwt woodlands #Fitfwt 2023 #im in the dallas airport on my way home #and its not the vibe #definitely going to take some mental gymnastics to go back to cosplaying a functional adult professional #this yolo way of thinking has been fun #i needed it i think #reminds me of who i used to be #but in a mature headspace #and not surrounded by toxic energy #and also flying has been nice #instead of roadtripping 17 hours to texas as the solo driver #because flights were too expensive #hahahaha #a thing ive done before #more than once #wtf is my life #why am i like this #no regrets

[ghostzzy]

anyway it kinda sorta feels like my life is just now starting.

#i'm 25 and for the first time i'm not wondering what's wrong with me. #now i KNOW what's wrong with me and that means i can HANDLE IT. #and look at me. i'm handling it!!!! #i can't believe i spent my entire life thinking i was weak and lazy. #i am. perhaps. very strong and brave for spending my entire adult life so far advocating for myself #in the face of family and professionals who all tried to convince me i just needed to try harder. #like. maybe actually i'm a bad bitch for being the only one out here fighting for answers #even when the answers were fucking scary and nobody else believed in my experiences!! #i've had irl folks cringe at how open i am about my diagnoses. but like. #i'm autistic i've got adhd and bipolar ii and i'm disabled with hEDS and associated neuroimmune conditions #and i'm going to be SO annoying about it because I WORKED HARD TO FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT. #SORRY IF IT MAKES YOU RE-EVALUATE YOUR ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ME. ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE ME. #because i've re-evaluated my assumptions about me. and i feel so much fucking peace. #because i'm finally learning how to take care of myself properly. #and for the first time since i was 18 years old. i feel genuinely hopeful that i might actually get to enjoy my life. #ANYWAY Uhh i gotta go to bed. GOODNIGHT. #izzy.txt

[godblooded]

if you get an ask from me (probably from @clawsextended ) yes you absolutely did i have selina brainrot and i have for literally like three hours now.

#ooc. o kaptain. #[the best idea i ever had was going ‘I write lofi miyazaki selina who is also a scene from elfen lied’ and beyond on both sides of that #spectrum. i am cringe but i am free and she is nearly 40 with a child she stole. solidifes my own canon like striking an anvil. fuck it. i #do not care even remotely. over here probably gonna kitty. probably gonna some doc bloom. today’s possibilities are endless. i can focus?? i #love you so much aderall holy fuck. i need my recc letters for my new job and then i can start. it’s whacky because my indeed is full of job #shit for various therapy professional positions because i GUESS my masters works for that?? wild. man im glad I actually did all that school #shit. like I wouldn’t readily recommend it and I think it’s a case by case basis where academia is concerned. college ain’t for everybody it #is very fucking boring and very fucking difficult and if you’re neurodivergent it’s dick. but Christ I’m glad I have a particular and #lifelong hyperfixation with education and development… that I didn’t even realize until I was an adult. okay okay. that’s a lot. time to #write. love you guys!! maybe I’ll make a fucking promo for selina that I like. pls support my brand 🥺🥺 I am TRYING. I have awful cottonmouth #that feels like it’s from hell.]

[aro-culture-is]

Hope it's okay to ask this here, sorry if not

I have a qpp, we are long distance so don't see each other often. Now they were able to visit me some time ago and all the time leading up to it I was excited about that.

But when they actually got here my brain sudfenly switched to avoidance. We've seen each other once again since then and it's been the same, when I see them in real life I just do not want to interact with them. Haven't really interacted on the internet as much since then butvwhen we did it's fine for my brain.

It's just really confusing to me because it happened so suddenly and I've never heard about something like this before. I always thought if you don't feel an attraction to someone anymore it happens more slowly? So yeah, any ideas about that?

Honestly, this is a pretty difficult question to answer. Outside of the attraction and aromanticism warehouse, I'd actually like to point to the psychological aspects of this.

It's pretty common to be excited about something, and then get spontaneously anxious the day of. They're pretty related, even! And while I don't specifically know you, I know I have an anxious-avoidant attachment style, and I struggle a lot with my personal connections with others. I want to have people around me, I crave affection and care and all that comes with that - and I'm so terrified of it I regularly self-sabotage to avoid the possibility that I may receive that affection. I'm terrified of accepting it. I'll plan for weeks for a fun outing, and then the day comes and I want to vanish into the aether, tell them nothing, and live out a life of exile.

And I don't feel in that moment that I'm necessarily afraid of their affection. I subconsciously blame anything and everything else. I'll wonder if I'm sick (ignoring that I haven't taken my meds yet, and I always wake up a little unwell). I'll feel like there's some weird tension between my friends and I (and ignore that there's no concrete evidence, not ask them or allow that person the agency to speak their side, assume the worst of my closest friends). Etc, etc.

I'm not going to arm-chair diagnose you from my apartment at 4 in the morning. but i do want to provide the thought that while this could be about attraction, it could also be something to talk to a therapist about, talk to your qpr about, and consider through the perspective of your personal history with affection, interpersonal relationships, and if you've recently had negative experiences with those.

i hope this helps!

#Anonymous #not aro culture #aro #aromantic #actually aro #actually aromantic #ask #mod kee #(who straight up saw this from watching mod axel in the inbox and was like 'oh i'm taking this') #advice #qpr #also i'm not a psychology person necessarily - talk with professionals if you can #i'm really just applying things i know about myself through therapy here #and i'd 100% be lying if i said i can help you to move through or past this because uhhhhhh #i haven't gotten there lol. i am painfully avoidant to a fault. #turns out longstanding emotional abuse can fuck a person up and unfortunately the skills i needed to survive that environment #are very much not conducive to healthy relationships and coping as an adult #who'd've thunk

[caramiaaddio]

Okay this is not me bragging or anything I’ve spent 15 years in intensive training it’s not like I’m super unique or anything but like. It sucks a little to have such a versatile voice. Like yes I worked hard to be able to sing any genre with the requisite style but then people are like ‘okay now sing’ and my brain is just like. How? What genre? What style? I do not have a voice of my own it sounds however I choose it to sound

Like there’s a local variety show I wanna do cause yay performing and it’s like well of course I’m gonna sing but then like. How?? Cause I wanna show off my voice I worked hard but then it’s like what do other people find impressive? When does it get too much and just get annoying? Like I’m trying to pick a song and I can’t even pick a genre. Opera? Musical theatre ballad? Jazz standard? Something Julie Andrews-esque? Something to belt? Something fun and silly? Something soft and emotional with my guitar? I am stumped and no choice feels good

#ah autism. it’s a classic alix conundrum #that is not a joke I do this literally any time somebody asks me to sing anything at any point #I’m just at the point where I can no longer trust me own judgement on this because I am literally a professional musician #the things that I like and find impressive in singing are vastly different from everybody else #because it is literally my job to know about and judge vocal technique I am a choir teacher #so I fully just have no idea how to impress others. but also I am desperate to impress others #and I’d say the likelihood I will be the only adult in the show is Very high #this is a worthwhile use of my time. I am moving out in two days

[orcelito]

perhaps also related to the fact that i am scheduled to close this weekend with the person who was apparently laughing about how a year ago there was a supervisor chat without me Specifically for the purpose of shit talking me

and im supposed to treat her graciously after that? get Fucking real.

#speculation nation #negative/ #like. i will. i'll treat her politely as is expected of me working with someone i dont like #even though that wasn't a courtesy extended to me by the people last year. including her apparently! #i dont know why she's come back. i want to gut her like a fish. #i dont think i mentioned that but i learned a few weeks ago that she was laughing about this to a few employees #who called her out for it. which makes me feel very grateful to them. #how fucking immature though. resorting to bullying and ostracizing in a workplace environment. #this was the bullshit that had me fucking Sobbing bc of it all. and you're Laughing about it? #you saw the day that girl screamed at me & how i cried for a half hour straight in storage #until i finally pulled myself together enough to work (though i was still next to tears for Hours) #me. a person who cries Maybe 4 times a year. if even. it had me struggling that hard to not cry. #and this is Funny to you? it's Funny that i was treated like that? just because you all didnt like me bc i was Too Confrontational? #a: im as confrontational as i need to be to avoid problems festering. as a grown fucking adult should be. #and b: even if you didnt like me that's still fucked UP #what the fuck is WRONG with you people??????? why do you take so much glee from my pain? #and again. in a fucking place of work. i know it's food service but Please. have some basic fucking professionalism. #i dont know how im supposed to get through this shift. im so fucking angry at it all. #the anger and frustration has been cycling faster and faster in my heart and i want to Hurt Things but there's nothing im allowed to hurt #so what am i to do? how do i get rid of this feeling? i know what ive done in the past but im not allowed to do that now #with nothing to do im just blasting this fucking song. maybe if i play it loud enough it'll fix me.

[whileyoureinschoolidothisallday]

“What inspired you to write this book?”

Well, when I was 11, my parents bought me a Gamecube and the game Sonic Adventure 2 for my birthday. I was then introduced to Shadow the Hedgehog and the fanfiction community and I’ve been deeply unwell ever since.

#Risa is an Author Now #psst...I was becoming deeply unwell before SA2 and the two things actually gave me a much needed outlet #but it's funnier like this so shhhhh #honestly idk if it's just cause it's 4am but I am having SUCH a hard time answering this question seriously and professionally lmao #idk man I realized adults were infantalizing me because of my disability and my parents were too neglectful to listen to me about it #the rage had to go somewhere #I WAS A LONELY EMO WEEB IN 2005 THAT PLAYED TOO MANY VIDEO GAMES AND I FOUND ABOUT OCS #IDK WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME

[skarnish]

job interview tomorrow I'm Nervous

#changed my septum ring by myself though which felt like a win. the first time i changed my jewelry i had the piercer do it bc i was nervous #but i put my horseshoe back in today so i can hide it for the interview and it was so easy!!! i am an adult and i can change my own jewelry #and i can get a good grade in Professional Conversation. i hope. at least a better grade than the other three people interviewing........D: #so wtf do i do with my day now. like. do i just go to bed #video jame will stress me out because i have a really tough boss fight to do. and i don't want to play any of my other games #too tired to read. it's too warm to walk the dog. still have hannibal to finish but that also stresses me out. no ongoing crochet project. #maybe i will just keep complaining on the internet for the next ten hours and then it will be bedtime #whagever #to delete

[waugh-bao]

.

#I was attempting to kind of look like an adult professional today #(am I either of those things? barely. and not very often) #because I was having coffee with one of my advisors #someohow I ended up wearing Doc Marten Chelsea boots and black skinny jeans from Pepe’s #with a black mock neck blouse and a black and white houndstooth blazer that had a subtle yellow stripe #my (now quite short) hair kind of spiked out at the ends #and the friend I sent a picture to #to insure that it was appropriate #said it looked like ‘Keith on the bottom and Charlie on top’ #so I guess that’s where my style is right now #not the stones #(but kinda the stones)

[whentherewerebicycles]

ok well i drove 50 min in moderately heavy traffic to get to this place only to discover that they accidentally sent my security credential to the washington dc office instead of the washington state office 🫠 then had to drive 35 min back (less traffic, at least?). kind of an annoying way to waste a morning but whatever i listened to music and thought about my story idea in traffic so at least there’s that. unfortunately this means i will have to go back sometime in the near future once they get it shipped over.

i spent a couple hours this morning prepping for the campus visit but then started overwhelming myself a little bit so i think i’m gonna gently dial that back for today and return to it later. i honestly think i could do most of the visit tomorrow and it would be just fine. the only parts that feel like big question marks are the job talk i have to give to faculty (on a prompt that will not be provided until a week or so beforehand) and an “informal workshop or something like that” i have to lead with students (they haven’t settled the details yet). but like, both of those will be fine! i’m just raring to get started on the prep work yknow and not having clear parameters means i will do the classic jes thing of going deeper and deeper into various rabbitholes until someone stops me lol.

to try to give myself some parameters:

in general, i want to approach the research/prep work less as “i must do this otherwise i won’t be prepared!!! what if someone grills me on the research on this hyper-specific topic!!!!” and more as “would doing this research be interesting to me and useful to my work as a teacher even if i weren’t prepping for an interview? if so, proceed.”

buzzwords and specific citations don’t matter! what matters is my ability to clearly communicate my big picture values as an educator and administrator, the concrete things i’ve done to enact those values in my past work, and the vision i have for building on that work in the future in this specific institutional context. if i start feeling overwhelmed or like i am beginning to flounder, i return to my core values, my concrete actions, and my vision. i trust that in an interview or job talk context i’ll be able to draw on specific examples to illustrate those things or use my deeper knowledge to answer trickier questions if they arise. 

to keep myself focused on the high-level / big-picture philosophy i want to convey, i think it might be useful to actually make a list of core values or guiding beliefs - so that i have a VERY clear sense of what i’m trying to communicate and a very concrete document to refer back to when i’m feeling a little at sea. i think that should probably be the first thing i do and the main focus of this week, before i let myself delve any further into researching random little topics that might come up in some hypothetical interview situation lol.

i want to remember something macky said, which is that most people would prefer to talk and work with someone who’s curious about the world they’re entering rather than hyper-focused on explaining how awesome they are and how much stuff they’ve done in the past. so i don’t want to let my little insecurities about whether i’m Really Qualified For This Job lead me to knowledge-dump or talk endlessly about myself to try to “prove” something. i want to go into this experience with the calm, grounded belief that this is work i am well equipped to do, so that i can keep the campus visit itself focused on engaging with students/faculty, asking lots of thoughtful questions about the school’s work and priorities, and just in general showing that i can be a good colleague/teammate who people would enjoy working with.

#it's funny i think the insecurity i'm feeling is solely because of the job i'm in right now #where i'm treated as such a junior staff person and am not given tasks of any importance and am micromanaged like i can't do anything #but like if i cast my mind back to this time last year #i was directing a program! i was balancing competing priorities and managing a bunch of complex projects at once and making decisions about #curriculum and strategic direction and so on #and people were listening to me as an expert and not questioning my authority or competence at all #it's just interesting to notice that you know #like how being treated a certain way can make you feel a certain way even if you're like #objectively this is an inaccurate assessment of my abilities #i joke with liz that i have two personas now #one is 'jessica' which is what everyone calls me at work because for some reason it's what they put on all my official stuff #who is extremely junior and a little cringing and is micromanaged constantly on exceedingly simple tasks #and one is the real me who is like... a skilled and competent adult professional #so i just gotta exorcise jessica #gotta shake her off yknow #and reconnect with my actual self #this role would be a promotion to a higher level of responsibility! that's true! #but also at my old job i was often itching for more work and more projects and a further reach in terms of what i could do #and our renewal proposal was a massively expanded version of the original grant that i would've been in charge of planning and directing #so i was ready! i AM ready! #i just had to do this other job for a while to fund my move and the exorbitant cost of trying to have a baby as a lesbian lol

[absentlyabbie]

seriously, though. i work in higher education, and part of my job is students sending me transcripts. you'd think the ones who have the least idea how to actually do that would be the older ones, and while sure, they definitely struggle with it, i see it most with the younger students. the teens to early 20s crowd.

very, astonishingly often, they don't know how to work with .pdf documents. i get garbage phone screenshots, sometimes inserted into an excel or word file for who knows what reason, but most often it's just a raw .jpg or other image file.

they definitely either don't know how to use a scanner, don't have access to one, or don't even know where they might go for that (staples and other office supply stores sometimes still have these services, but public libraries always have your back, kids.) so when they have a paper transcript and need to send me a copy electronically, it's just terrible photos at bad angles full of thumbs and text-obscuring shadows.

mind bogglingly frequently, i get cell phone photos of computer screens. they don't know how to take a screenshot on a computer. they don't know the function of the Print Screen button on the keyboard. they don't know how to right click a web page, hit "print", and choose "save as PDF" to produce a full and unbroken capture of the entirety of a webpage.

sometimes they'll just copy the text of a transcript and paste it right into the message of an email. that's if they figure out the difference between the body text portion of the email and the subject line, because quite frankly they often don't.

these are people who in most cases have done at least some college work already, but they have absolutely no clue how to utilize the attachment function in an email, and for some reason they don't consider they could google very quickly for instructions or even videos.

i am not taking a shit on gen z/gen alpha here, i'm really not.

what i am is aghast that they've been so massively failed on so many levels. the education system assumed they were "native" to technology and needed to be taught nothing. their parents assumed the same, or assumed the schools would teach them, or don't know how themselves and are too intimidated to figure it out and teach their kids these skills at home.

they spend hours a day on instagram and tiktok and youtube and etc, so they surely know (this is ridiculous to assume!!!) how to draft a formal email and format the text and what part goes where and what all those damn little symbols means, right? SURELY they're already familiar with every file type under the sun and know how to make use of whatever's salient in a pinch, right???

THEY MUST CERTAINLY know, innately, as one knows how to inhale, how to type in business formatting and formal communication style, how to present themselves in a way that gets them taken seriously by formal institutions, how to appear and be competent in basic/standard digital skills. SURELY. Of course. RIGHT!!!!

it's MADDENING, it's insane, and it's frustrating from the receiving end, but even more frustrating knowing they're stumbling blind out there in the digital spaces of grown-up matters, being dismissed, being considered less intelligent, being talked down to, because every adult and system responsible for them just

ASSUMED they should "just know" or "just figure out" these important things no one ever bothered to teach them, or half the time even introduce the concepts of before asking them to do it, on the spot, with high educational or professional stakes.

kids shouldn't have to supplement their own education like this and get sneered and scoffed at if they don't.

[thebarlowestateswhiterose]

God I hate being an adult with adult responsibilities, I just wanna be a child playing with games

#stress #game developer #indie game #adulting #this is because I had to text with a professional game developer #and now I am stressed #depressed #and overwhelmed #slay

[letusrollon]

I've wanted to clean my room for a little bit now but just haven't been able to actually do it. So hard to work up the energy and motivation. I always end up doing other things when I try and start. Doing other adulting things instead of this adulting thing 😂

BUT

Bout to go to bed and I see a TINY FUCKING SPIDER on something. And yooooo let me tell you I am MOTIVATED. I can NOT WAIT for morning to roll around to clean 😭

(I got work Thursday. Friday I don't. So let's be real...can't wait for FRIDAY. 🤷🏾‍♀️)

#avoiding adulting by ...adulting other things #i paid my bills #and my mortgage repayment instead #at least i procrastinated by doing other inportant things #😅 #pretty sure i have adhd or something #currently professionally undiagnosed because expensive #cleaning #spider #im gonna feel uncomfy the whole night now 😬😬 #seriously tho...its getting cleaned #either this morning (cause its already past midnight)..but porbably tomorrow cause i got work later today 🙈 #but i will!!!!!! i swear #its the tiny spider. #i am MOTIVATED #i use tags for my admin purposes #letusrollon post #thursday #14th #September #2023

[inkskinned]

you get used to it, but it's tiring, because they need you to understand your own life as a series of goalposts. what college are you going to, what's your major going to be, whatcha gonna do with that, oh where will you settle down, when can i expect grandkids.

for the longest time my goals have been so blurry that they track into each other, their undefined edges slipping quietly back into the soft night. today i want to be a writer; tomorrow i will want to be a doctor, later i will wish i took that law school free ride. how the fuck do people just know what they want to do with their life?

where do you want to be in five years? i want to be alive; which is a huge step for me. ten years ago i would have said i want to be asleep and meant i hope that i'm dead by then.

but i want a yellow kitchen and a stand mixer. i want a garden and a fruit tree (cherry, if i can make that happen) and a big yard for my dogs to play in. i want to come home and read poetry out loud to someone and have them close their eyes to listen. i want a summer watergun fight. i want to make snowmen. i want to be the house to go to for halloween. i want my life to settle around me in a softness, for it to lay down gently. if i am very, very, very lucky, i want to travel; finally go someplace overseas.

of course i don't know what i want to be doing professionally. what i actually want to be doing is curling up beside my dog, settling in to read. i want to be making myself a cup of good coffee.

i can't answer the other questions. whenever people asked me what do you want to be when you grow up, i used to say i hope i'm happy.

i hope i'm still kind, five years from now. i hope i never get jaded and mean. i hope i have stayed in therapy. what do you picture yourself doing? when will you actually be an adult about this? why are you so afraid of being ambitious?

am i not ambitious? the other day i rearranged my furniture which doesn't quite fit into my apartment. i watered my plants. i'm going to try to propagate a cherry seed. my five year goal is to spend more time laughing. to lie down in a patch of sunwarm moss. to relax for a minute. to close my eyes and think oh thank god. this is why i stayed. this is finally it.

#writeblr #warm up #something something something took a lot of words to say #um my goals are really specific quiet things #and they're still valuable #bc i used to literally only have the goal of <3 bad things <3 #i was like ''who needs to picture the future? imma head out before then" #good news!!!!!!!!!!! ur in the future!!!! and u stayed!!! and thank god u did bc u actually fucking made it kid!!