#executive dysfunction and other stuff i have to do gets in the way | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

copperbadge · 5 months

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Hello, Mr. Badge, I seem to remember that you once posted about your processes and systems for staying organized in life with Excel spreadsheets etc. I’ve been struggling a lot with depression and executive dysfunction issues and don’t want it to impact my work.

Do you use the same processes at work? I get overwhelmed with the amount of documentation we have and the exceptions to the rules in our processes.

I'm so sorry you're struggling! It's really rough, and the more complicated the task feels, the more fraught it seems, the harder it is to even get a start. I feel that hard.

As for organizing work like my home life....well, it's sort of the same. I don't make a strong distinction between life and work simply because a lot of what needs organizing in my life IS my work, so it's tough to talk about them separately.

For example, I use Google Tasks to build a to-do list each day, but that to-do list starts with "stuff I'll do before work" then "shower" then all my work stuff, then "evening" and then all the stuff to do after work, ending with "7pm chores" (because I have a lot of stuff to do right around 7pm, which I need to post about elsewhere). Then the stuff I've pushed off to next day is below that, and that just bumps up the next morning. What's important isn't really how I keep the list, but that I keep it in a way that is constantly accessible, and I've trained myself to 1. put everything on it, even stuff like "grocery shop" and 2. check it whenever I feel lost. I don't find google calendars very helpful, however, so while work makes me use one for meetings, everything else goes on a calendar I made in Google Sheets that I'm just super used to by now.

It sounds like you're having a fairly specific issue, which may not even be related to your mental health (though assuredly the mental health issues aren't helping). If you have a lot of confusing documentation and exceptions in the stuff you do at work, that can be legit stressful even for someone who isn't dealing with other stuff, so I just want you to know that this may not only be a You Problem. My problem is usually the opposite, in that I'm often the first person doing something, or the only person who's done it in a while, so there's no documentation at all. But when I do have documentation I often will simply rewrite it.

After all, just because you have a handbook doesn't mean you have to use it. You can copy it over into another document and make yourself a step-by-step guide and/or a checklist. Like, I do our holiday cards every year, and my "HOLIDAY CARDS" document says "Here's the first thing you do, here's the second, do this before going past that, check this before asking for that". Literally at one point the document says "Stop. Before you go any further, do this step. Even if you don't understand why, do this step" because in the past I've disregarded that instruction ("Why on earth would I do it this way?") and lived to regret it.

Making the guide really, really sucks. Often it will take me four or five passes at a project before my guide is comprehensive (this is my fifth year doing the holiday card project and the document still has some steps missing at the end). But once you have it, it's invaluable, and often in the past I've found other people want my guides because they're fairly clear and precise about what needs doing when. For example, you might say, "Open the file and move column B to in front of column A. NOTE: THERE IS ONE EXCEPTION, THIS IS THE EXCEPTION." Or "Once you've saved the file, save a second copy to your backup folder so you can go back to it if you delete something you shouldn't. Stop and check: is this file from before or after October? If after, remember, you have to also rename it." If you find that there's a mistake you make frequently, figure out what would stop you from making it and add that in.

(We had a guy at work whose last name was VERY long and Italian, and so when I was working phones he got a special entry in the directory document I made -- the first line was all his directory info and the second line was just the phonetic pronunciation of his last name. He found out, which I had never intended him to do, and lost his shit laughing. "No wonder you're the only one who gets it right!")

So my recommendation to you is to create your own handbook, your own templates, and your own way of doing things and just slip that back into the system you have at work. Draw a diagram by hand if you need a flow chart. My approach to all my organizational issues has always been "What would make me do this correctly / prevent me from doing that thing wrong / remind me what to do / make it easier for me to start".

I think of this nowadays as the "Take the cupboard doors off" school of organizing, because to really make full use of my kitchen in a way that I liked, I had to take some of the cupboard doors off. It looks messier and kind of cheap, but it's actually a much more organized system now, and who's in my kitchen other than me?

#sam has adhd #adhd #organizing

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ms-demeanor · 2 years

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do you have any tips for cleaning a space? I’ve been frozen trying to clean my room for 4-5 months now and just spent 10 hours reading through your adulting blog et al. and most of your tips have been incredibly helpful (despite me being much more on the autistic than ADHD side of the venn diagram)

YES. YES I DO.

Hi. On top of the ADHD I also have some history of OCD, which primarily manifested in being a hoarder. Like. Clinically. Like towers of stuff in my room and piled on my bed so I slept on the couch. In retrospect, cleaning it up was a problem for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons was executive dysfunction and not knowing how to start cleaning.

Long story short the way that I did it was by finding something called "40 bags in 40 days" where the goal is to remove 40 bags of trash/donations from an area in 40 days. 40 bags in 40 days was initially created as a challenge for Lent and a bunch of the people who blog about it do so in a manner that is religious to an extent that I am uncomfortable with, and there's this weird bullet-journal thing where planning ends up becoming aesthetic and there are charts and shit but you can ignore all of that, here are the basics:

Start with a written plan

You are going to try to declutter while you do this

Limit your scope each day so you don't get overwhelmed

Remove things that you won't be keeping in the space immediately; don't leave piles of "throw away" or "to donate" or even "to keep and organize later" stuff in the room you are clearing

Give yourself a firm deadline/number of days to do this project

The written plan: Break the area you are cleaning down into manageable bite-sized chunks. When I was doing this I moved in a pattern for increasing access to the room, because I literally could not get further into the room without cleaning some parts first, so my first chunk was "the space between the door and the bed" and then it was "the surface of the bed" and then it was "the nightstand." People who aren't doing cleanups on quite as catastrophic a mess might focus on even smaller areas (make each drawer of a dresser an area, or a single jewelry box, or one shelf in a bookshelf). But the key is that you have to sit down *outside* of the room that you will be cleaning and make a list of places that you need to clean. Don't stand in the room and look at everything and get overwhelmed because there's so much, don't go in and actually try to clean, just make a list of areas that you think you can do in an hour or two. And make sure to actually write it down so that you can use the list to refocus yourself - it's super easy to drift when you're cleaning and to move into another area because you found something that belongs in that other area, but you need to clean the other area before you can put more stuff in it, but you can't. You are focused on ONLY the area you've written down that day.

Declutter as you go: Do whatever you need to do to sort stuff you're going to keep from stuff you're not going to keep, Konmarie spark joy sort or rainbow label or whatever sorting scheme works for you, but you should have three categories of stuff: keep, donate, throw away. The "bags" in "40 Bags in 40 Days" is supposed to be bags of stuff to donate or throw away, but I actually made another category of bag which was "keep for memory book."

One of my huge problems is that I want to keep tons and tons of little mementos and business cards and stickers and fliers and photos and wristbands from shows and the thing is, if you do that you eventually have a huge pile of what pretty much looks like trash. So what I did was I had gallon storage bags (see-through) and any time I ran into some weird little memento thing that I wanted to keep but that probably seemed like trash, I would put it in the storage bag. Eventually I ended up with ten bags full of that kind of stuff, which I set aside for later, and in the end I put that stuff into three fuck-off huge photo albums with self-stick pages. They aren't organized scrapbooks or anything, they're a bunch of bullshit arrayed together in a displayable form, but it is so much better to have these three huge books than a million tiny piles of paper that I don't know what to do with. I also have a pile of tee-shirts I cut the image off of that is in a bag to become a quilt someday, and I have some small decorative boxes for stuff that I didn't want to get rid of but didn't fit in the albums and that wouldn't really go on display shelves or anything like that.

My "keep for a memory book" bags were more key to decluttering than the trash or donation bags, because a LOT of stuff that I had was stuff that I wanted to keep but didn't have anywhere to put. I *still* make bags like this. I have three or four of them right now, one of which is JUST stuff like wristbands and drink passes and business cards and fliers from shows I did with my band. I just fill up the bags until I've got enough stuff to sit down and work on a memory book for a while, then I go through and stick stuff in the book for a few hours. Having someplace to put all that stuff has been a huge help to prevent me from ending up with the same kind of messy disaster that I had before. This is my personal biggest kind of clutter and isolating it in bags and books has been an enormous quality of life improvement for me.

Limit your scope each day: Cleaning is mentally exhausting, and looking at how much you have left to do or getting distracted by uncovering another area can murder your momentum, so limit the scope to just your area for the day. You aren't cleaning your room, you are cleaning the surface of your desk today. You aren't cleaning your room, you are cleaning the floor of your closet today.

If you're feeling up to it, you may be able to move through several areas on your list in one day - that happened to me a lot, and 40 days ended up becoming more like 15 days - if that happens, and you're up for it, feel free to move on to the next area. But you still should be limiting yourself to the areas in your list, not the room generally. Don't finish cleaning the bottom of the closet and then look up and go "I can clean this whole thing, actually", if you finish cleaning the bottom of your closet and feel like working on cleaning still, move on to the next area on your list instead of randomly attacking everything.

Remove stuff from the space that you're cleaning while you're cleaning it: take any full bag of trash or donations out right away, but also remove stuff that you need to reorganize later. For example: I had books on every surface in my room, but the book shelves were on the wall furthest from the door. Instead of trying to put every book I found on the shelf, I set aside books as I cleaned and took them out of the room so that I could put them on the shelves when I got to them, but wouldn't be tripping over them or dealing with seeing them as distressing visual clutter as I worked on other areas. It helps to have a designated space to do this, so if you live with roommates or family make sure to tell them about the project and designate an area where you will be placing stuff until the project is done; if you can't get that, then have one dedicated box/bin/area in your room that is the 'sort when i get to it' station, and add books/clothes/etc to it as needed.

Give yourself a firm deadline: I know that brains are weird and deadlines are sometimes fake and sometimes motivational, but this deadline is a combination of "promise to your housemates that this pile of stuff won't exist in the entryway forever" and "schedule so that I know that I'm not going to be doing this project for the next seven years." 40 days was the suggested schedule because it was originally a lent thing, but also because that's a reasonable number of chunks to clean up. If your room would work better as 10 chunks, it could be 10 days. I think that more days is probably better because it lets you make smaller areas to focus on, but you know your space best.

Also, be kind to yourself. There have been a number of times that I have gone through all the effort of cleaning and reorganizing a space only to sit down at the end and cry because it's too different and I don't like it. That's not me being unreasonable, that's me being stressed after a stressful process and I am not allowed to beat myself up about it. I'm not allowed to yell at myself for how bad I let my space get, I'm not allowed to call myself names or denigrate myself 'because an adult should be able to keep a tidy space.' Cleaning is stressful and facing your flaws is stressful so the very least that you can do is not add to that stress by topping it off with self-criticism. Other people may be critical of you in this process, and if they are my advice is to let them know that feeling bad about your room isn't going to help it get any cleaner, and that if they want you to keep cleaning they shouldn't make cleaning more of a painful process than it already is by making you feel bad about it.

Good luck! I hope this helps!

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actuallyadhd · 5 months

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Why do my ADHD meds only help in making me able to get up every morning, instead of actually doing something for my ADHD symptoms?

After Ritalin didn't work at all, my psychiatrist put me on Vyvanse (50mg). I've been taking it for at least two years now, and it helped me beyond belief. But not in a 'aiding in concentration' way, instead, the only thing they do is not letting me go into a catatonic state all day.

Whenever I'm off my meds, I return to the same condition I was in before starting them: I can barely get up. It's a fatigue so intense I literally cannot do anything but the very basic, let alone study. I honestly cannot tell you how I survived so many years without it.

Yet, no matter how much they improve my quality of life (and though my sensory issues got more manageable), they don't do anything to aid in my studies. I still cannot focus on tasks, nor manage my hyperactivity (be it in a physical or mental level). I still get executive dysfunction, talk too much and too loud, can't sit still, have no restraint or self-control and am basically still the same inattentive, agitated person I always was. Am I just in a too-low dose, or there's something else wrong with me?

(Crossposted from Reddit. Sorry if this is too long, and feel free to take as long as you need to answer this!)

Sent December 8, 2023

There are a lot of different reasons this may be happening, and the first one that comes to mind is that your dose may be too low.

There is another aspect that's important, and that is the need to manage your expectations.

Medication doesn't make all of your ADHD symptoms go away. It doesn't make you neurotypical. It doesn't magically give you the skills you never learned due to ADHD stuff.

It sounds like you have quite severe ADHD (hi! Same here!), which makes every single little thing harder. But here's the Really Simplified Explanation about how meds help.

Let's say that a person's overall functioning can be rated on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is "completely neurotypical" and 10 is "completely non-functional".

Given this, your unmedicated ADHD is at a 7 or 8, and it sounds like your medication is pulling you to around a 5, or maybe a 4. This sounds awful, but what it does is give you the ability to actually learn the skills you need so that you stand a chance of being slightly more functional when you're off your meds.

The other part of this is that the Big Four (sleep, diet, exercise, & stress) also affect your functioning, and if any of them is out of whack then your medication won't be able to help as much. So having something screwing with you may put you at a 9, and then your meds will only be able to get you to a 6.

Things that may help with the issues you've listed here include active breaks, fidget toys, and lots of routines. We have lots of information about all of these here, but if you want specific information about any of it please feel free to ask.

Followers, what do you think about this situation? Do you have any advice?

-J

#adhd #actually adhd #asks #anonymous #meds #executive dysfunction #school

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hillbillyoracle · 2 years

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Fuck Goals, Fuck Vision Boards

Task Management for Planning Averse

AKA Even People with Zero Direction in Life Deserve Nice Things

So if you don’t already follow Dana K. White on YouTube, you should. She’s the author of the blog A Slob Comes Clean and several books. What I’m going to talk about below is heavily inspired by her work which is why I wanted to cite her upfront but also seriously go check her videos out if you’re trying to declutter and get organized.

Right now I’m mostly using her videos and it’s genuinely the only decluttering method that has ever worked for me. And one of the reasons it works for me where others haven’t is that it is a system that doesn’t rely on feelings or valuation.

I realized that as I’ve gotten better at task management in my life - though lord knows the move has made that more complicated - I realized that not using feelings or judgement based questions is what really helped me. I also realized that I had 100% completely given up on goals. I had neglected to set goals for a couple years now and weirdly I got more productive, not less. What gives?

Step 0: Give Up on Goals and the Fantasy Self

What I realized is that goals were really just a product of what a lot of decluttering folks call my “fantasy self”. My fantasy self woke up at 5am and did little work out videos but trying to leap to become that fantasy self fucking sucked. It was not enjoyable once the novelty wore off and it largely didn’t present enough benefit to justify doing it.

Which meant I would stop and then I would feel bad about myself and I’d pick up bad habits to cope with the feeling and then I was worse off than before.

So when I stopped setting goals, I stopped declining at least because there wasn’t that rebound effect where I self soothed using way too much ice cream and binge watching whatever I could find. I hit a baseline that wasn’t amazing but the stability was helpful. Only when I gave up on the fantasy life did my actual life get better.

Capitalism loves the fantasy self. People spend so much money to try to become their fantasy self and often don’t even benefit that much from it. Then the guilt of seeing that stuff around can lead folks to by more stuff to cope with the guilt. The only people winning are the companies who you buy from.

Also, folks with executive dysfunction have a very hard time picturing what done looks like. So trying to picture your “ideal day” is low key a nightmare experience for someone like me. Mission Statements can be real intimidating when you’re not totally sure what those words will mean for the decisions you make. Vision boards...I’m sorry I know some folks love them but I really do not enjoy them. They’re a sensory overload of an experience to me from the crafting to taking them in. I’ve never made a vision board that really did much for me.

I’ve also recently learned about The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin and I am definitely a Rebel. So too much pressure internal or external and I will find the quickest exit possible. Rebels are a small but sizeable portion of folks according to the authors research. Which means there are likely other people out there who also find goals to be way too much fucking pressure.

This is all to say - fuck goals. But you’ve still got a life to live so how do you move the needle in the positive direction?

Step 1: Initial Brain Dump

People would always tell me to brain dump but never really explained how. They were like “Yeah just get all this stuff in your head out on paper” and I’m like...I don’t even know what’s in my head unless I go looking for it.

So I offer you two questions and two methods of gathering answers.

When trying to brain dump, ask yourself:

What do I spend a lot of time thinking about?

What are the specific tasks associated with these subjects?

If you can’t think of next specific tasks associated with those subjects, it does necessarily mean you need to strike it off you list, it’ll just be a little tougher to know where it fits.

Sometimes I’m able to sit down and answer these questions all in one go. And sometimes it’s much easier to keep a running list in my phone and when I realize I’ve been thinking a lot about something I add it to the list. Then later I can sit down and come up with specific tasks or process it in step 2.

Step 2: Task Punnett

In step 2 I look at my list and ask myself two questions:

Do I already spend time doing this?

Will I face a negative result if I don’t do this?

This gives four categories a list item can be sorted into.

Yes/Yes

The goal here is to prevent burnout so you don’t stop spending time doing these. Common ones are cooking, cleaning, or seeing friends. So it’s important to look at each of these and make sure they’re as easy and enjoyable as possible.

It also helps to know what your minimum is for each so that if you’re burning out you can scale back to your minimum effective dose is that allows you to avoid the material harm but give you a break - like getting take out or having freezer meals on hand, knowing what the most important cleaning tasks are and only doing those, and at least sending texts or voice memos to friends to connect.

Yes/No

The goal here is to protect this time as much as possible. It’s what tends to go when Yes/Yes and No/Yes tasks start to get out of hand. That will look different for different people but it almost always involves capping Yes/Yes and No/Yes time and not allowing yourself to go over. As you might have guess most hobbies go here.

Some people will need other people to help encourage them to keep doing it. Some people will need flexibility so it feels like they’re truly choosing it. Some people will need to refresh their memory that these kinds of activities are just as necessary as other types of tasks.

Guilt and shame is a big one that keeps people from having many things going in this box but it can also be a lack of self knowledge too. We’re not exactly encouraged to explore what we truly deeply love. Mental illness can also make this box tricky as anhedonia can make everything feel bleh.

In all of these cases, I really suggest making some sort of reflective practice something you try to keep in this box so you can notice what triggers guilt, what sparks joy, and what just isn’t working after a while. Doesn’t have to be journaling in the traditional sense. I used to turn on my computer cam and just talk but now that I need more audio privacy, this has been really helping me.

No/Yes

I fucking hate this box in all honesty. It’s the one that drains me and makes me feel like shit to look at this list but also I feel the most badass when I actually complete something off of it.

The goal with this box is to figure out what’s blocking you from this being a Yes/Yes. Basically finish the sentence “I don’t really want to do this because...” and you’re on your way. Most barriers can be dealt with. I used to not believe this but I promise it’s true.

This is where having a therapist, good friend, or community where you can bounce ideas off of can really make all the difference. A reflection practice can also really help get a different perspective too. Sometimes the barriers loom so large in our mind that adaptation seems ridiculous or impossible. Take advantage of different perspectives.

Automation, delegation, and congregation (body double or a group) are incredibly useful tools here. Don’t do more here than you need to.

What’s key in the second question for this section is that this is something you have the power to impact the outcome of. If you don’t have the power to change the outcome or you’ve done all you can, then the task is bracing, mitigating, and accepting, not dealing with the topic/task head on.

No/No

There are 2 main things I find in this category - shit I agreed to because I felt obligated and someday maybe projects. For shit I agreed to, the only remedy is to just get out of it, to bail in the most graceful way possible. I also try to prevent stuff from winding up here to begin with (no more event planning for me for a while).

For someday maybe projects, I like to keep a space - usually Notion - where I can collect my thoughts on it, projects, and pain a picture of what it would take to make it a Yes/No task someday in the future - always keeping in mind what I could do with the materials and time I have available right now. I’ve picked a quite a few of my No/No tasks this way and made them things I do regularly because I left myself those breadcrumbs for later.

Step 3: Prioritizing without Feelings

So now you have your tasks organized into these buckets and know what to keep in mind with each. So...what do you do with them?

A lot of people will tell you to prioritize and do the hardest first while your willpower is strong but I say fuck that my willpower is never strong so we’re going to do easiest first to build up some confidence.

No/No - For obligations that no longer serve me, I bail. For someday maybe projects, I write up some quick notes in my little system in Notion.

Yes/No - gather and prep materials, block out time, ask someone to do it with you or find a group if needed

Yes/Yes - gather and prep materials, if burning out, switch to minimum viable

No/Yes - figure out the barriers, automate, delegate, congregate, list next steps

Stuck Tasks - Too much to go into here but this video is helpful.

Sometimes I bounce around a bit - dealing with a Yes/Yes task will suddenly give me the guts to deal with a stuck task, getting out of a No/No obligation will make a No/Yes task look easier. So I don’t limit myself to this. But when I’m having trouble I go back to the list and just trust.

If I have avoided doing a No/Yes task for anywhere from several days to several weeks - it’s official a stuck task and I bounce it there while I work through other No/Yes tasks to deal with later.

Sometimes time pressures will dictate that things need to be handled before others - that’s fine. But usually a crunch will either show you that you will not in fact face a negative consequence after all or give you a motivation boost to carry you through some of the difficult tasks.

Step 4: Doing it again

So when do you do it again?

I do my brain dumps on Sundays and sort them into area of life lists so I can work on them by theme or focus but honestly whenever. When I was really in the throws of some bad mood shit I’d only do it every few weeks or so. Any amount of doing this generally had lead to a better life though.

What about stuff I’m not thinking a lot about?

That usually means either you’ve got such a good system for it that it’s running on autopilot so why mess with success, the possible reward is not appealing enough, or the possible consequences don’t freak you out enough.

This isn’t really a system I use for creating like...a good life by a neurotypical standard. It’s what I use to manage the stress, concern, and daydreams I’m having right now, to get things off of my plate and grow my confidence.

So will this mean everything gets managed? No. But it does mean the stuff most likely to keep you up at night does. Which is a huge fucking boon.

Conclusion

There’s some more intricacies in this too like moving No/No projects to Yes/No and No/Yes projects to Yes/Yes - it’s not the same strategies in my experience - but this is already running long.

Hope this helps someone else out too!

#studyblr #adhd #autism #planning #fuck goals

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ladykailitha · 1 year

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Can Anybody See Me? Part 21

Executive dysfunction is a bitch and can go to hell. I had something I could have posted yesterday while I was working on this, but no...

I am starting to wonder if maybe I shot myself in the foot with my tag rant as engagement for the last Reconnect AU was WAY down. But oh well. I can only continue to move on and hope I find new people who like my stuff.

All righty, my lovelies. We have gotten to the part where I was going to end it originally before you absolute menaces said you wanted me to continue it through season 4.

But here’s the deal, this story has reached nearly novel length of 40k. So what I’ve decided to do is call this the end of book one. And then I will start up book two, which will be through to the end of the school year and probably through the events of season 3. And then book 3 should take us the rest of the way.

I hope that’s acceptable to all of you. I want to continue it, but I think from here on out the title doesn’t fit Steve anymore and he needs a new one.

Now if you’ve followed me long enough, you know that I don’t start putting out a story until it’s done (if it’s short enough) or if I’m three to four chapters deep. So hopefully by the end of the month (if not sooner) you should start seeing book two.

I will run a poll on how you think I should do the tag list for it. But thank you all for coming with me on this absolutely wild ride. And hope you’ll stick around for the next two parts.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20

***

Word had been handed down, Mindy Jones, Ollie Anderson, and Kyle Carver had been suspended with word that Kyle being the instigator might be expelled. For sure he wasn’t going to be able to walk in his cap and gown at graduation.

Steve felt a sense of relief and strangely justice too. Yes, all right suspension wasn’t getting expelled, but the kids had been punished. They didn’t try to hand wave it away.

Steve had heard that Mr Vinke, the math teacher, Mr Cole, Miss Lucy, and Chief Hopper had all gone to the principal and superintendent for all three of them to be expelled.

The suspension was a given, but the school district wanted to do their own investigation and then expulsions might be handed out after it was complete.

Steve didn’t have much hope.

Marty, Gethin, and Janice all sat with the Corroded Coffin boys at lunch, something they didn’t normally do.

“Fuck,” Janice swore. “Why I am more nervous about tonight than I have all week?”

Steve nodded, poking at his food. “I haven’t been this queasy since I took a plate to the head.”

Everyone winced and murmured sympathetic platitudes and other noises of sympathy.

“I think it’s because it’s your last performance,” Gethin murmured. “Your last chance to completely biff it on stage.” Steve and Janice looked at him in wide-eyed fear. He waved his hands placatingly. “Not that I think you will. Just that your brain thinks you will.”

Steve and Janice looked at each other and then nodded.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “That tracks.”

Eddie slid his hand under the table and gripped Steve’s knee. Steve covered his hand with his own and gave it a squeeze of thank you.

Steve scanned the crowd the second night. He spotted Jeff and all his family, Gareth and Gethin and their parents, Brian and all of his younger siblings, and what looked like his dad. Wayne shuffled in his seat nervously, having never been to a musical before. But still no sign of his parents.

His mom promised that at least she would be there, even if his dad refused to come. And he held on to that. He managed to make it through the show and held it together.

He went out to be congratulated by his friends and their families. Wayne brought him flowers.

“You did good, boy,” he said gruffly, after giving him a hug. “I looked it up and flowers are the gift you give someone after a well-done performance.”

Steve looked down at the bouquet of wild flowers and smiled. “Thank you. I love them.”

Jeff clapped him on the shoulder. “They might be a tad wilted by the time we’re done, because we’re taking you out to eat in celebration.”

Steve teared up a bit. “Thanks, guys.”

Gareth smiled. “You deserve it, man. That was awesome!”

Gethin nudged his shoulder. “We’re just waiting for Janice and Eddie to get done.”

Steve nodded. Eddie had to reset the stage for tomorrow and Janice had to get out of a corset and that took some time.

“Yeah, no problem!” he enthused.

Eddie finished first and came out to meet them.

“Hey, Steve!” he said. “Feeling famous yet?”

Steve laughed. “I’m going to get fat if this keeps up. First ice cream last night and then dinner tonight.”

They all laughed. “It’s impossible for you to gain weight, man,” Brian huffed. “I’ve seen you eat a whole pizza and didn’t even get bloated.”

Steve laughed. “Playing three sports does that to you. Hell, I still life guard at the rec center every summer.”

Brian eyed his lean form skeptically. “I suppose so.”

“Swimming’s fun,” Steve said. “And it’s not just for us jock types.”

Janice finally came out. “Sorry to keep you waiting guys. Sharing with Tammy Thompson is hell let me tell you. I don’t know how someone so tiny can take up so much room.”

“At least you don’t have to share the choir room with twenty sweaty dudes that wouldn’t know deodorant if it bit them in the ass,” Steve grumped.

Gethin shook his head. “Shouldn’t you be used to that from sports?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “At least there are showers after basketball. Can’t say the same here.”

Gethin’s lips curled. “Fair.”

Wayne clapped his hands. “All right, I’ve got us a place reserved, so we need to hustle. Eddie and Steve are coming with me.”

Eddie and Steve filed out with the rest of them and followed Wayne out to his truck.

Steve slid into the middle between Eddie and Wayne.

“Thanks for this, Wayne,” he murmured. “And the flowers, too.”

“You’re welcome, Stevie,” he said. “I didn’t see your parents. Did they show up last night?”

Steve shared a glance with Eddie and then shook his head. “There’s still tomorrow.”

Wayne and Eddie shared a glance of concern over Steve’s head.

“I’m sure that’s the case,” Wayne agreed.

An uneasy silence settled on them as they drove to the restaurant. Wayne parked and turned to Steve.

He pulled him in for a great big hug and then opened the door. “It’ll be all right.”

Steve nodded and slid out after Eddie.

The dinner was just as ruckus as the ice cream parlor the night before. With just as many people. Steve looked around and smiled.

Yeah, 1985 was his year and it was just getting started.

Steve looked out to the audience and knew, even in the dimmed lights his parents weren’t there.

“Tell me, Mr Thomson, out of curiosity, do you stand with Mr Dickinson, or do you stand with me?” Vince asked.

Steve could feel the sting of tears in his eyes. He held up the dispatch. “I stand with the General. Lately–I’ve had the oddest feeling that he’s been–writing to me…”

He slowly rose to his feet as he sang,

“I have been in expectation Of receiving a reply On the subject of my last fifteen dispatches. Is anybody there?”

His voice cracked with emotion as he stepped half out of the spotlight.

“Does anybody care? Does anybody care? Y’r humble & ob’d’t–”

The drum rolled and Steve looked up into the eagle’s nest where Eddie was doing the spotlight. A single tear ran down his cheek.

Steve looked down at the paper in his hand and then back up at Eddie. And then he exited the scene on cue.

Eddie swore he saw more tears in that moment then for ‘Mama Look Sharp’ that night.

But that performance of Steve’s brought out something in Vince in that moment. Vince’s John Adams bid Hancock good night, but then it changed. All the emotion and fear of not being seen or heard. The loneliness that Adams must have been feeling in that moment, borrowed from the loneliness of both Washington and Thomson.

“Is anybody there–”

Silence.

“Does anybody care–?”

Again, nothing.

“Does anybody see–what I see?”

And then Kenny came on and delivered the line with a sharpness that hadn’t been there before.

“Yes, Mr Adams, I do.” As if to banish all the fears and insecurities that John was having in that moment.

And Steve could almost hear it as though it was coming from Eddie. As if it was coming from his friends. The party. Wayne.

Yes, his parents weren’t there. They never were. And probably never were going to be. But that didn’t mean that no one was listening to Steve. That no one cared.

They all cared. Every last one of the dozens of people that showed up the last two nights. They cared. They brought their families. Brought flowers. Thought he was worthy of celebrating. Worth treating.

For the boy with the bat.

The boy that never knew what love really was until he looked up from a god damned garbage can into those warm and friendly brown eyes. A warm hand on his back and a gentle ‘Are you okay?’

In that moment, Steve’s life had become changed. Different. Better. All because a teacher took pity on Steve and chose Eddie Munson of all people to be Steve’s protector.

And he looked up at Eddie in the rafters and though he couldn’t see him, he knew that Eddie was looking back at him. Smiling back at him. Loving him for all his worth.

And if you had asked Steve what his worth was back in December he would have told you nothing. He wasn’t worth anything but being the baby-sitter. But now?

Now Steve was a baby-sitter, chauffeur, groupie, actor, chef, swimmer, friend, brother, and most importantly boyfriend. And maybe if he was really lucky, someone’s son.

***

Fin.

Fuck, rereading this to add back in the formatting made me cry. My apologies if it makes you cry too.

Tag List: @shrimply-a-menace @strangersteddierthings @throwbackthrowaway @novelnovella @cursedfoxteeth @babyblender @garden-of-gay @anaibis @lifeisnotsobadonceyoustopcaring @swimmingbirdrunningrock @steve-the-hairrington @winterbuckwild @spectrum-spectre @matchingbatbites @thing-a-ling @fandemonium-takes-its-toll @artiststarme @sundead @nelotegreitic @gregre369 @butterflysandpeppermint @thedragonsaunt @kodaik97 @messrs-weasley @scarletzgo @deadlydodos @renaissan-vvitch @evix-syne666 @emly03 @justforthedead89 @ashwinmeird @huniibee @phantypurple @stevesbipanic @shucks-yuckyuck @lovelyscot @awkwardgravity1 @bookbinderbitch @reportinglivefromsoda @jinxjinn @chasinggeese @be-the-spark-bitch @kohlraedirectioner @cr0w-culture @xjessicafaithx @whimsicalwitchm @jaywhohasthegay @estrellami-1 @dangdirtydemons @howincrediblysapphicofyou @the-redthread

#My writing #stranger things #steddie #canon divergence #the boy with the bat #ladykailtiha writes

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 8 months

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AITA for not letting an autistic kid join my group?

Okaayy this requires a LOT of backstory so bear with me on this.

I am 16F and the kid in question is 16M. I shall call him Tyler. I've known Tyler for like 3 years, never really been friends with him but he has been in my classes many times. Tyler is very blatantly autistic, which means it's very easy for people to pick on him. Other kids will be dicks to him and rile him up because they think it's funny. I am also nd but am quite good at masking so I don't get picked on but I am still a loner. Y'know the stereotypical quiet kid. Last detail to note about Tyler, he never does any of the classwork. Every time I have been in class with him he has just watched youtube on his laptop and will not do the work unless a teacher forces him to. This is important to note for my first major encounter with Tyler when I was 13.

There was a group project and everyone had to pick a partner to do a presentation, standard school stuff you get the gist. Me and Tyler ended up being the last ones left so we got paired together. The problem was that he did not pull his own weight. I had to sit with him and slowly walk him through the stuff we had to do for the project. Then I told him I would do X part of the project and he would do Y part of the project. He agreed and I went to work on it. The next day I asked if he had done anything, he hadn't. I sympathized with this because I also have executive dysfunction and very much struggle with completing things so I told him it was fine, he just had to work on it today and to send it to me once he was done. So I got home and waited for him to send me his part of the project but of course, it never came. So I ended up having to do literally EVERYTHING myself at the last minute. I went to the computer room to finish it at break time and lo and behold who do I see but Tyler in the computer room watching youtube. I gave him a firm telling off because I was hella pissed that while I was stressing out trying to do a group project by myself he was doing fuck all. He obviously felt bad but I was still rather pissed. So on the day of the presentation I did something admittedly very petty in that I forced him to do his part in the presentation despite him never seeing the presentation before. So he obviously struggled a lot. But that was that and I was quite certain I didn't want to work with him again. Flash forwards a bit, he tries to sit with me. I don't want to be an ass so I let him. The thing is that he was completely clueless about all the work so I ended up having to be like a surrogate teacher, walking him through everything. Again. The thing is, I couldn't get my own work done if I was stuck being Tyler's tutor. I was like "Fuck this. I'm not his teacher! I'm not even getting paid for this!!" So I started actively avoiding sitting with him so I could actually get shit done and he seemed to get the hint.

Now, to the present. He happens to be in the same class as me and asked if he could be in my group and I ignored him. I felt bad about it but I did not want to be handholding this kid. He seems to be actively trying to get my attention and trying to interact with me but I am just not interested. Especially since he seems to think that doing things like flicking water at me or slamming doors in my face is a good way to get my attention. I've tried to make it very clear I don't like this behaviour but he keeps doing it. In the most recent incident he randomly poked my back when I was crouching down to pick something up. I really hate being touched so I snapped at him but I feel guilty about it now. I feel like I could've handled it better because he clearly doesn't pick up emotional cues very well. And clearly he's just lonely, which I get but I feel he burnt this bridge a while ago and is just blasting the remains with a flamethrower.

So tumblr, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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raccoon-eyed-rebel · 11 months

Text

Body Double

Masterlist

A/N: A little bit of friendly Sy fluff I started during a moment of struggling with some lovely Executive Dysfunction (I get that for free with my ongoing ADHD subscription 🥰🥲)

Summary: You need to clean your house, and you get a good friend to help you...

Word count: 679

@geralts-yenn @deandoesthingstome @keanureevesisbae @fvckinghenrycavill @ellethespaceunicorn @peaches1958 @sillyrabbit81 @peyton-warren @summersong69 @mayloma @livisss

“You need me to what?” Sy looks at you in surprise.

“Body double,” you say plainly, blissfully unaware that there’s nothing wrong with his hearing so much as he doesn’t have a clue what you’re talking about. “Eh. I need to get some stuff done and I... can’t...”

“So you want me to help you?” The tone in his voice suggests that he absolutely would help you, and you love him for that. But no.

“No, I don’t need you to help me. Alright, no, wait. I want you to help me, but not by actually helping me. I just need you to be there while I do the thing.”

“And why does that work?” Sy says. You feel the expression on your face change, even though you’re not sure to what, and Sy raises his hands. “Not a judgment, just trying to understand why this helps you.”

“Right. Well, having someone in my space who knows what I’m trying to get done very gently shames me into actually doing it. Also, I can talk to you, which keeps my brain occupied while my hands do the boring thing.”

“Alright,” Sy shrugs. It’s not as if you were planning on doing much other than hang out on the couch all day. Might as well straighten out a bit of your house while you’re at it… “Where do you want to start?”

“Ehh...” Decision making. Not your greatest skill. “I need to do laundry, dishes, tidy and clean the bathroom and kitchen and tidy the living room...” Fuck. Breathe. In. Out. In again. When did breathing become a chore you have to also consciously do? Shit.

“Help. Overwhelmed.” Sy immediately wraps you up in an almost bone-crushing hug that helps you settle down right away. He’s the only guy you know who’s strong enough to squeeze your soul back into your body. “Thanks.”

“Can I make a suggestion, or is that going to make you want to not do anything at all?” You’re happy to hear he remembers your memo about demand avoidance. A nod will have to do as an answer: you can’t speak yet. “Washing machine, dishes, kitchen, dryer, bathroom, living room, fold laundry. Plan?”

“Plan.”

“Alright, lead the way.”

“Did you know that emperor penguins lose up to fifty percent of their body fat during winters, and their feather density increases to compensate for that?” Sy has been sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his phone, for about an hour while you are hard at work. The dishes are done, dried and put away, and the counters are clear for the first time in months.

“I did not,” you laugh. “Keep hitting me with those, they make my brain happy.” God, you’re so glad to call this guy your friend, because he delivers way beyond what you’re asking of him. He spends the next few hours throwing random facts and trivia questions your way, and you couldn’t be happier.

“Let me buy you pizza,” you say when you’re finally done with everything. Now it’s finally time to laze around and watch movies! Sy takes the beer you’re holding up.

“No need, sugar,” he replies as if you were asking him a question. In the four years you’ve known him, this man has never allowed you to pay for a meal. Ever. It’s ridiculous.

“You helped me, you deserve pizza,” you remind him.

“I wasn’t helping you,” he shrugs. You schlump down on the couch next to him and poke him in the ribs.

“You have no idea how much you really did help me, though,” you say. “But you know what? I’ll just order a large pepperoni, and you can just take a slice when you decide you want food, after all.” Stubborn as a mule, this one. And you just know he’ll never learn.

“Alright, fine.” Sy scowls and rolls his eyes at you. “But as far as I’m concerned, we’re already square.”

“How so?” You raise your eyebrows in surprise.

“You bend over a lot when you clean, let’s leave it at that.” Unbelievable.

#captain syverson #captain syverson fanfiction #syverson fanfiction #syverson #henry cavill characters #henrycavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill

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iamacolor · 1 month

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i'm turning 27 today so I've officially left the "young people group" - bye bye youth prices, my fellow europeans will understand - and I think it's the first time that a new birthday makes me feel really adult (despite not feeling that different from last year) and getting my adhd diagnosis is definitely a reason for that. it's given me such a different outlook and approach to myself (with less shame and sense of inevitability for the things I can't do and more gentleness with myself) and it's giving me more hope for different things in the future. I'm not where I thought I'd be when I was a teenager and 27 seemed so grown-up, neither when it comes to work, money, travelling or where I live or even romantic relationships since there's still nothing on that front lol. While that could be sad I also feel very at peace and also excited to try to things.

I started medication and I'm very happy to feel that it has an effect on me (I had a weird fear that it wouldn't do anything and that it'd prove that I didn't actually have adhd and was just not doing enough even if I knew that wasn't true but it's not that easy to let go of the feeling that it's just a question of effort and will but thankfully that's been proved wrong lol) and that so far there have been no secondary issue except for a slight loss of appetite - it's only been 3 weeks and I'm still in the testing phase where I started with the lowest dose and then I increase it everyweek to see how it goes but I feel much lighter in my brain and more in control even if it doesn't last all day. I shocked myself on one of my days off where I sat down to scroll on my phone and thought oh I should actually start cleaning my room and then I just stood up and did it more thoroughly than I've ever done since I moved in lol. I've even initiated tidying up and reorganising our workshop and cleaning up the machines at work, my manager says I'm in my organising and tidying up era.

I never would've read up about adhd symptoms the different forms of adhd and how it shows up in adults if I hadn't seen a random reblog on this website, back in September I believe, about executive dysfunction that lit up something in my brain because wow there was a word for the thing I was struggling with!! So I guess this is a very long way to say that holding on to this blog for so long was worth it and thank you to everyone here for sharing so many random stuffs, it's cool to think we're all having impact on each other 💜 and this is also to say please educate yourself about the various forms of neurodivergence because I genuinely thought I knew enough about adhd to never even consider it for myself and that what I was struggling with was just a "me problem" so you or someone you know or will know might be neurodivergent in some ways and you can make your life or their lives easier by knowing how to handle it and not to stigmatise either yourself or the people around you 💜

#hope everyone here is well 💜💜💜#I haven't been on here a while because I've been sewing/reading/knitting a lot and I'm not watching any dramas but all is well!!#vinformation

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ace-touya · 8 months

Text

Headcanons I Have For Some of 1-A

Not all of these are my own and some are very popular/common, but I thought of a lot of them myself too!

Izuku Midoriya

His mum taught him to crochet

His favourite fruit is apples

Before he got One For All he’d try to be a hero by doing cliche good guy things, like helping old people cross the road and getting cats out of trees

Mumbles hero facts in his sleep

Tells his mum about Ochaco all the time

As a child, because he knows his dad’s quirk was breathing fire, he once asked his mother of Endeavour was his dad

Autism and ADHD, heroes are his special interest

Shoto Todoroki

He’s autistic, this is barely a headcanon at this point it may as well be canon

Uses he/him, but doesn’t really care if people use other pronouns

He stimmed a lot as a child but was constantly told off for it until he stopped, now he can barely recognise his own emotions because his stims were different depending on how he felt

He only takes cold showers

When he started talking to them, he would ask Natsuo and Fuyumi to tell him stories about Touya

Katsuki Bakugo

He’s gay

Hard of hearing from his explosions, Class 1-A are trying to learn sign, Present Mic is helping because he’s also hoh from his own quirk

stole some of Izuku’s All Might merch when they were children because he was too embarrassed to ask for any

his favourite colour is pink

he’s genuinely scared of his mother

him and Ochaco have been close friends ever since the Sports Festival, but he won’t admit it

Has really bad ADHD posture

makes tiny explosions as visual stims

One of his ways to distress is by cleaning, but because of his ADHD he struggles to actually clean, so he continues to be stressed

Ochaco Uraraka

Before they moved into dorms, she used to save food from the cafeteria to take home to her parents

Can carry Izuku, Iida and Katsuki. Katsuki swears she’s using her quirk, but she isn’t

She has ADHD, and finds it really hard to think before she speaks, also tending to interrupt people a lot

Her attention span is non-existent, and in middle school she was always scared of telling her teachers she couldn’t focus or hadn’t been listening, but she finds it a lot easier to do that in UA

She plays Animal Crossing New Horizons on Izuku’s Nintendo Switch

Tenya Iida

Autistic as well

Talks really fast most of the time

Dresses up as his brother for Halloween almost every year

He made a group chat for class 1-A for important things but everyone just uses it to send memes that he doesn’t understand

Momo Yaoyorozu

Having her hair up helps her focus like Violet from a Series of Unfortunate Events

She’s autistic as well, and really struggles with social cues, especially flirting

make-up gives her sensory issues

Midnight was the only teacher Momo confided in about her low self esteem. The fact that Midnight believed in her helped her stay motivated when she didn’t believe in herself

She gives the best presents because she can buy expensive things and if she can’t find anything she thinks people will like she just makes them stuff

Tsuyu Asui

Uses she/they pronouns

Has synetshesia, and will randomly tell her classmates that their voice tastes like x, or their name is y colour. For example, Ochaco’s voice tastes like marshmallows and Katsuki’s name is yellow

Also autistic! She does t-rex arms all the time canonically

She likes styling the other 1-A girls hairs

Eijiro Kirishima

Wears eyeliner

made the Bakusquad group chat

He looks up to Mina and Fatgum even more than he looks up to Crimson Riot

He’s banned from the dorm room kitchen by Katsuki

ADHD! Executive Dysfunction has it out for this man and the rest of the class basically keep him alive

Kyouka Jiro

sensory overloads constantly

Bisexual

listens to music to help her sleep

she video calls her parents almost every day in the dorms

Exclusively drinks fizzy drinks

Takes a lot of photos of random things that her classmates do, and makes it into a photo album

Denki Kaminari

Trans masc

Pulls finger guns whenever he compliments anyone

Has a really wide range of music tastes

Tries his very best to keep Mineta in check

He loves just dance

Fumikage Tokoyami

Uses they/them pronouns

Their room is usually a mess. Clothes everywhere.

writes and reads poetry, their favourite is The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

Chirps as a stim

Knows morse code. Nobody knows why

Yuga Aoyama

Genderfluid

Attracted to men

Does yoga

Cheese is his comfort food

He’s autistic too. Nobody in this class is nuerotypical, not even their homeroom teacher

Knows how to braid hair

#Izuku midoriya #shoto torodoki #katsuki Bakugo #ochaco uraraka #momo yaoyorozu #tenya iida #tsuyu asui #eijiro kirishima #kyoka jiro #denki kaminari #fumikage tokoyami #yuga aoyama #class 1a #bnha #mha

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not-poignant · 6 months

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Question! You juggle so many projects at once, and I think that's awesome. Do you have any advice for how you stay motivated (and/or organized) to work on so many different things? If I'm inspired by something, I want to focus on That Thing and Only That Thing — I have a really hard time pulling my brain away to work on other projects.

I'm wondering if a schedule would help? How do you even set your schedule?

This is a lot of questions packed into one ask, I realize — I guess I'm just in awe of your NaNoWriMo progress (you are insane (affectionate)) and want to pick your brain about your process a little.

Hope you have a lovely day!

Honestly anon, we all have our ways of writing, and it's best if you stick to what actually works for you instead of forcing yourself to do something different.

I'd recommend looking into some of the coaching / videos / podcasts by Becca Syme. A lot of it is simply based around accepting who you are, instead of forcing yourself to write like other people. Part of that is finding your strengths, but some of it is simply...being like 'okay, I'm like this as a writer.'

I don't write lots of projects because I taught myself to, but because I love doing it. I write more when I work on more projects. If I forced myself to only focus on one thing I'd feel stifled and held back, I'd write slower, and I actually think my writing would be muddier and less good.

Other people do best and write fastest when they're focusing on only one project at a time.

And which kind of person you are anon is something you'll figure out over time. Though it sounds like you might already know.

If you wanted to try working on multiple projects, I'd look at adding just one more into the rotation and seeing how it feels. Does it make you write more? Does it make you want to write more? Is it pulling focus? Is it making you lose inspiration on the other story? It's not so much a scheduling issue as it is simply...which one gets the words out?

The goal isn't to become like me as a writer, just like my goal isn't to become like other writers. The goal is to get your words out in the way that works best for you. If that's slowly, that's amazing. If that's fast, that's great, and while there are techniques you can try, it should always be with a view to respecting your organic process.

Many writers quit, or burnout, as soon as they stop respecting that process, or when they start feeling ashamed of their natural process and put pressure on themselves to do it another way.

Also I'll be honest, I'm working on too many projects right now and even though I'm loving it, I know it's too many. Like, I've deprioritised Underline the Red for my own sanity, and I am actually really looking forward to clearing a couple of stories from the schedule so I can focus on other things. About 3-4 stories is my sweet spot.

I don't exactly 'stay organised' anon. I actively want to work on all of these stories. And tonally they're all different, so if I feel like something more wholesome, or something darker, or something more pornographic, I have options. I do have a monthly kind of idea of what I should be working on (i.e. based on the upcoming schedule), but I can only really do that thanks to ADHD meds and I'm cautious of recommending techniques that I personally can only access and make use of because medication has fixed some of my executive dysfunction issues. If you're playing with any kind of unmedicated ADHD, there are tools that won't be as useful without tangible medical or therapeutic support. D:

I set my writing schedule via a mix of the writing that makes me money, alongside extra writing that I enjoy that doesn't make me money. Ideally I enjoy all of it and it's all fun. But the stuff that makes me money has to come first, because of like...life reasons. Idk where you're at professionally, or even if you want to do this professionally, and that would profoundly influence how I'd even suggest scheduling. If you don't have to schedule your writing, don't do it! If you don't have to make decisions like this, then don't make them!

Also, if I hated any of these stories, I'd put the story on hiatus. I don't believe in writing stuff I hate or resent writing. I know other people can make themselves do this and I'm glad that works for them, but I can't do it and I just...yeah. I have to love the story and enjoy it and not resent it to see it through, it's probably why there's so much drama happening all the time, and angst, I'm keeping my dumb hurt/comfort brain engaged lmao.

Never underestimate the power of also just 'I've been doing this for 10 years and I'm very practiced at stuff that other people will only learn with years of practice.' Some of this stuff doesn't have shortcuts, it just had a lot of time and 5 million words sunk into it. When I first started writing on AO3 I wrote one story at a time (though I did quickly become bored of that and moved to two). I wasn't making money. I didn't have a schedule for 9 years. I didn't want one.

The things I've learned... my wordcounts are reliable because I've just had a lot of practice writing. Unfortunately there's no trick to that, beyond sitting down and writing. The more you do, the more you learn about your own process and respect it, the more you write the stories you love, the better you'll get. And I've had times where I've burnt out, times where I've needed long breaks, times where I pushed too hard or forced myself to be like other writers and ended up wondering if I'd quit.

I want to give you easy answers, but the easiest one I have is - which way of writing brings you the most joy? Which way makes the words flow? Is it just one story at a time? That's great - that's your way. That might change in time, but don't force it to. You can experiment like a scientist and try different things, but be compassionate and accepting of whatever your innate way of doing things is.

I struggled so much with the fact that serials is just my way in a world of novelists. I cannot tell you how much misery it has brought me, trying to force myself to be a dedicated novelist when I always just wanted to write sequential stories live. And I really thought I was doing things wrong and you know, other authors thought I was doing things wrong.

It turned out I wasn't, but self-acceptance of my own methods and style went a long way in that process.

You might not like this response anon, and I apologise for not actually just lining up a schedule for you to try (I don't listen to my own schedules), but...it's okay to be someone who works on one story at a time. Or two stories only. I actually think it's awesome, and my writer-friend in my writer's group whose work I've been helping beta for years is a 'single project at a time' writer and a *rewriter* (no one wishes they could change their process as much as rewriters imho) and her writing is amazing. Like, incredibly good. (That's Stephanie Gunn by the way, for anyone who wants to read some cool science fiction / gothic fantasy).

So that's her process, and it's an amazing one, because it creates the writing that it does. Whatever your natural process is, anon, it's okay to write that way, trust me.

#asks and answers #pia on writing #idk if i am well-equipped to teach anyone anything about writing #but i do know that respecting your way #the way that makes the words flow most #is the way forward #experimentation is fun #but never try and make yourself be a different kind of writer #because down that path lies burnout and just...losing some love for it #maybe one day i'll go back to working on one project at a time!#whatever is right in the moment is the process i follow sdlkjfsa

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pyrrhiccomedy · 5 months

Note

what do you do when you're ADHD and know lots about your brain and how to Make Things Work For You but nonetheless the executive dysfunction persists! and you let all the important tasks build up because you don't want to do them and literally anything except 'the stuff i know i ought to do' is distracting/preferrable? like i KNOW what i need to do to break out of executive dysfunction but i... don't...? any insight on this? cheers mate

I mean dogg this is just not something you can think your way out of. parts of your brain are smooth where they shouldn't be smooth and other parts have holes in them that shouldn't have holes. you are not cranking out the chemicals you need to compensate for that. all the productivity tips in the world are not gonna change that. you need medication. I take three separate meds for my ADHD and it's changed my life. I still have ADHD, the meds don't make it so that I'm just like someone who doesn't have ADHD. But getting through the executive dysfunction is now like needing to shoulder through a stuck door, instead of, like, needing to break down a brick wall with my bare fists. I'd rather not, but it's doable, in a way that it just wasn't, before.

If for some reason medication is not available to you - and I'd really strongly recommend looking into that deeply before you do anything else, because basically all healthcare now covers these meds and most of them are very cheap - then the honest to god real answer for adults is to get some stimulants on your own. start with caffeine and like...go from there. I self-medicated with all kinds of fun additives before I finally figured out that the reason I felt more productive on amphetamines wasn't just because amphetamines are a great time.

if you are not of an age or background where you feel comfortable acquiring substances of questionable legality, uh. I don't know dude, take up knife juggling or something? adrenaline will get you there too.

my point is that if you already know everything there is to know, you know all the hacks and tricks and tips, and that's not cutting it, then you need to alter your brain chemistry. there's the easy, safe, cheap, medically advisable way of doing it, and then there's all the other ways of doing it. I'm not your mom or your pastor, so like, do what you've gotta do.

#adhd

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girlymatsu · 9 months

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WAAAHHHH @flyingspicerack thank u for the ideas!! (i doodled some things along with my rambles) LONG POST AHEAD talking about stuff

GETTING TOGETHER…

Abshrhsa I think of thousands of ways osoeri get together… every which way.. but I think canonly their relationship is kind of slow and vaguely romantic for a while!!

Friends that hug for too long and when going out on the train erina is always asking to lean on his shoulder to rest and ends up nuzzling him.. Osomatsu talks to his brothers as if erina is already his girlfriend and brags all the time like “ERINA-CHAN IS THE ONLY ONE FOR ME!!!”

But when its just Osomatsu and Erina they’re close friends but often are shy with their affection at first, osomatsu going so quiet when erina leans on him to sleep and holding his breathe the whole way home.. Osomatsu goes out of his way to inch his hand towards Erina’s and the tips of their pinkies kiss and it makes him tremble out of love overload.. And despite being outgoing Erina is quite shy when initiating things sometimes like she’ll just get closer while laughing and acting like she’s not doing anything ^///^ his hands will just be on top of hers for a while and she will not point it out and let it happen bc she doesn’t want it to end..

Erina is very insecure too I imagine they get closer because Osomatsu gets to know her insecurities and hype her up and thinks she’s even cuter because of them ahdnfndk like erina thinks she’s like.. “fake cute” and that people will be repulsed by her knowing she’s a mess— and though osomatsu doesn’t really understand her mental turmoils he just wants to her to believe that he thinks she’s so cute the cutest in the world like goes crazy over how she’s sincere like wtf.. pure !?

UGH and then and then. I imagine when osomatsu is pushing his luck with her, being perverted and acting really gross towards her until he’s all up on top of her and she doesn’t do anything to stop him… he melts into mush on top of her. Saying that she has to stop him if she wants him to stop, and erina doesn’t want him to stop. And Osomatsu says she’s being dangerous, does that mean she likes him? Erina says what if I did like you… Osomatsu hugging her like you won’t be able to take it back, I don’t think I’ll ever let you go never never— and then it segways into being more bold and becoming a real relationship auagahgaa

MUNDANE THINGS-

i love to think about how they share treats,Erina loves sweet drinks so Osomatsu always gets a taste… sip sip and kiss 😚

And just like how totty and Osomatsu watch videos on their phone I think Osomatsu and erina would do that too, watching funny videos and making dirty jokes.. I think Osomatsu loves it when Erina loves funny sex and poop humor!!

Erina has the worst executive dysfunction when it comes to cleaning and organizing so when she has to do laundry, sometimes osomatsu comes over and either just lays around and just his presence motivates her.. and sometimes he helps but they both get lazy and they just lay on top of the clothes to take a break 💕

I Like to think about also take walks around the city often and erina jumps and fawns over every dog they see 🐶

HOLIDAYS

Erina doesn’t get to go home to her family very often during the year so Osomatsu invites her to spend time with his household during the family oriented holidays.. eating hotpot and she can spend time with his funny brothers and parents.. Matsuyo loves her and tries to insert subliminal messages to give her a grandchild by showing her baby pictures.. I think it’s so sweet erina would very much appreciate not being alone for the holidays and being around people who are close to one another rather than her family that is actually very distant from each other emotionally

AND FOR NON family oriented holidays.. like Christmas Eve for couples.. ofc they go on dates but Osomatsu WILL have his head in the gutter the whole time preparing for getting dirty afterwards— like haha yeah the lights are so pretty, I can’t wait to have sex tonight 🤪 while erina is like wow this is soo romantic.. I cant wait to have sex tonight 🥰

SEEING EACH OTHER ON THE STREETS!

Literally magnetic towards each other they will find a way.. floating over to each other spinning in circles like omgomgomg wowowow I missed u!! And their plans for the day combine like he was out shopping groceries and she was going to get a package well why don’t we go together teeheehee (annoyed choromatsu third wheel)

OK THATS IT FOR RAMBLING IF ANYONE BOTHERED TO READ IT ALL THANK YOU

#osoart #osoeri #erina

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