#i still find myself being like - oh that's my adhd

[inkskinned]

i both firmly believe that self-diagnosing saved my life and i think that the way tiktok and instagram have recently been spreading misinformation about mental illness/neurodivergence is incredibly harmful.

people who are looking for answers are already people who are in a vulnerable situation.

much of the misinformation appears logically sound; and is presented as definitive fact (prefaced with claims such as "research shows"). it's imperative we remember correlation does not prove causation. it is incredibly dangerous to make definitive statements like "if X happened in your childhood, you now Z as an adult." real scientists will almost always use may or other less-definitive terms. similarly, equating one behavior/experience with any single condition is also unsafe. many conditions have overlapping symptoms; and many people "mask" their key symptoms, even to themselves.

we cannot discern from a singular data point any conclusion. in official diagnosis, for a behavior/experience to be considered a symptom, it must significantly influence your life. many people enjoy an organized space. that is a preference. disrupting your daily life even at personal cost in order to prioritize organization is more likely a symptom.

again, a single data point is not an effective diagnostic tool. it is necessary and important work to catalogue and consider all unwanted/distressing behaviors in order to understand a complete picture of the person.

i will see creators in paid partnerships make generalized behavioral/emotional claims that apply to a large portion of a community, and then they will suggest that the "solution" to that behavior is through their paid partner/through their personal support. "follow for more psych tips/facts" is an incredibly evil marketing tactic. i very rarely see unpartnered/unbranded content on how to aid/comfort those behaviors and feelings.

much of the misinformation employs a subtle technique (called confirmation bias) of setting up a conclusion before "proving" the conclusion. "you know you have X when you experience A,B, and C." no person's experience of their conditions/behaviors will look exactly the same as another's. while knowing certain things might be a sign/symptom of a condition, it is irresponsible to consider it definitive.

confirmation bias is unfortunately extremely effective on tiktok specifically. the algorithm will notice that you interacted longer with the video that "proves" (through a singular video) that you "have" a condition. it will continue to feed you related videos that further confirm what you believe.

this is dangerous because we are, unfortunately, not good at knowing ourselves. i did not know it was unusual to vividly nightmare every night; i didn't consider it a symptom. i was similarly dismissive also of any other signs of my PTSD - i incorrectly assigned them to anxiety/adhd. on the small scale, this can mean a longer journey to healing. on the larger scale, it can mean people with extremely difficult situations are unable to get the help they need.

please, if you can, and you're looking to self-diagnose: be careful about what you assume about yourself. try to keep an honest journal of what you're thinking/feeling/doing for a few days.

do not go in with an assumption. try to keep an open mind. i think we all "suspect" we have something - but like i said, i completely missed my own PTSD symptoms, because i suspected the ADHD the most, and only "saw" those symptoms.

do your own research. if the tiktok says "research shows", google that research. figure out who paid for that research. do further research related to that study - has it ever been repeated? is it peer reviewed? do other researchers seem to accept it as conclusive?

if you feel you really resonate with the materials of one person's experience with a condition, find other examples. see if you relate to other creators who identify similarly.

and please - please do not stop once you come to a conclusion. i fully believe that the diagnostic process should be seen as a first step, not a destination. by knowing what you might be struggling with, you gain an incredibly powerful tool on how to gain peace with that condition.

if you feel yourself emotionally respond to a tiktok/etc that suggests something that might be true about yourself, i'm glad you had that experience. but it's also important to not relax into the "easy" answer. interrogate it. start googling what else that could mean; what ways you could work on healing that wound.

healing does not "belong" to any one condition. i want you to begin to look into healing no matter if you have "proven" you have a condition or not. it is never selfish to practice responsible self-care. even if you don't relate to having adhd, you are not harming me by using adhd-inspired study tips. it is not making my condition worse for you to seek peace by asking for more time on tests. even if it was - the fault would be with the system, not in your need of something the system makes inaccessible.

remind yourself that everything you experience is real. and because it is real, it is complicated. while things might be related - even sometimes clearly related - a stranger on the internet cannot make that discernment for you. you as a person deserve the work, attention, and care that goes into the process of unravelling the harm that has been done to you.

it makes me very, very upset to see how popular these videos have become, because they're so irresponsible. and they clearly are targeting a vulnerable group. for example, making generalized claims about children of unloving caretakers is targeting those who have experienced neglect. there is no way to use 30 second videos to correctly analyze what that neglect might have caused in your adult life. i'm sorry, but it's snake oil.

i know it is so powerful soothing to recognize that you aren't broken. that others exist like you out there. i want every person looking for answers to find their answer. i want you to feel seen and heard and understood. i want you to find your community.

i just want it to happen safely.

#every time i write this im like #i just want to say a short thing about this #and every time it ends up being 12 pages long #but since it keeps happening #and i keep seeing shit like this... #this isn't even everything i feel about this #i hope this is clear like #what im saying is #NOT ''you don't have it if u selfdiagnose'' #it's instead.... #you might!!! just don't let 1 or 2 videos confirm it!! #also!!! don't assume that symptom A belongs to condition X!! #even as someone who did eventually get diagnosed like #i still find myself being like - oh that's my adhd #only to figure out 12 hours later. nope that was a panic attack #also none of those videos are about how to HELP the behavior #also this doesn't talk about getting a therapist eventually but please get professional help if you can #it took me fucking forever tho #what im saying is that in the meantime #u can heal now #this is too long im posting it on a sunday so nobody reads it

[combeauferre]

.

#once again overthinking about how i keep considering adhd medication to be some kind of life changing drug #like im just. waiting for my life to start? when i get on meds? #and there's like. a decent chance it is not gonna be like that for me #no antidepressant or adjacent has ever worked for me before #and i shouldnt rly get my hopes up and i should probably just find other ways to help myself #but it's like 'oh no i cant do that bc i have this thing later' but on a larger scale #idk #i just keep getting stuck on like #what if im just like this for the rest of my life #what if there's no treatment that works for me and what if i just cant do shit and leave things to the last minute #and feel overwhelming intense rejection and lowkey constantly hate myself #and go through all this with no remedy for the rest of my life? #what then? #idk i think im still coming to terms with like. #adhd actually being a disability #the vindication of 'oh im not faking all these things i actually Do have adhd' #is slowly being replaced by 'oh. i have adhd and i actually have to deal with that now bc it is disabling and debilitating' #and it's just. shit #anyways #ignore me #incoherent rambling

[thebibliosphere]

Hm. I'm rereading something I wrote, and I can't decide if it's going to be infuriating for some readers, or if there will be more going "OH, same!"

Given that my readership is largely in the Autistic 🤝ADHD vampire fan club (Vlad), I'm hoping it'll be the latter, but it's still making me hesitate because it's not how people expect sex scenes to read.

Everything's usually boiled down to a laser-focused precision of sensations and evocative, heated language -- and that does eventually happen with this. You just have to get past Vlad's brain wandering around for a bit because while Nathan's doing a good job of getting his attention in the moment, he's not being consistent, and it's giving Vlad's brain time to wander. Like noticing that Nathan squints a bit when he reads. ("(Hyperopia, Vlad’s brain supplied helpfully before he could smother it.)") Or just generally having full-on conversations in his head in the downtimes between stimulation -- and by downtime, I mean the split second it takes for Nathan to grab something from the nightstand.

Another part of me worries people will think I'm playing to stereotypes or I'm hamming it up to be "quirky," but given my brain is the epitome of the "hyper 8-year-old boy who can't sit still shiny disorder" despite being a 36yo cis woman, I've pretty much resigned myself to some people calling Vlad a stereotype anyway.

A larger part of me just... kind of really wants to see this kind of thing in a sex scene. I want to see my own thought patterns and acknowledge that even when you're getting hot and heavy with someone -- arguably an act that should consume all of your attention -- you'll still find your mind wandering. You'll notice something out the corner of your eye and go, "fucking shit, laundry, do not forget, do not forget" (and then you'll forget), or you'll be about to go down on someone, and the dick joke your friend told you three months ago will pop into your head and suddenly you're snickering with no tactful way to explain it.

(This is another thing that I always think is sorely lacking in sex scenes. No one's messy. No one's laughing like an idiot because they just thumped their head into the headboard, or a joke just popped into their head. Or someone's body made a fart sound because there's lube in places and things are thrusting. Like, maybe it's me, maybe I'm weird, but I think those are the moments you can build real romance out of. Not necessarily erotica, because those things (supposedly) aren't sexy, but there's so much emotion you can show with partners who are able to laugh with each other in those moments. You can show so much love and reverence through the mundane it hurts.)

It'd just be nice, for once, to have the character be absolved of the guilt that often happens in those moments because you're supposed to be focusing on what is happening, and your idiot brain just won't shut up.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter too much. It's a short story I'm hoping to fling out at some point (as soon as my idiot brain shuts up and lets me finish it). But it feels more important than it actually is because it feels like I'm exposing a major part of my psyche. Like pinning down all the ugly parts of my brain that can't ever actually be pinned down, no matter how much I try.

idk. Words. Things. Stuff. I'm going to try and finish this and then see what I want to do with it.

#long post #writing #adhd writer #rambling with joy #my kingdom for some ADHD meds

[cxptain-capsicle]

Beyond the Sea | Luke Castellan | III

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Unclaimed Poseidon Daughter!Reader

Warnings: angst, fluff, slow burn flashbacks, established relationship present day, Gods being terrible parents

Series Masterlist Taglist

“Luke.” You whispered, trying not to wake any of the other campers. “You awake?”

“Yeah,” He whispered back. “You okay?”

You had been at Camp for a few months now and Luke was already accustomed to being woken up from you jolting out of bed after a nightmare. He joked that some mornings he would nearly be thrown out of the top bunk.

“I didn;t have a nightmare, I just can’t sleep.” Your voice trailed off at the end. Within a second Luke was out of the top bunk, his feet hitting the hard wood made a loud sound that made you jump.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. You sat up in the bed and he came to sit next to you.

“I just-” You started but struggled to find the words. “I don’t think I’ll be claimed.” After your few weeks at camp the topic of being claimed felt taboo, like everyone was thinking the same thing and nobody wanted to say it. 

“You don’t know that.” He shook his head. “I knew a girl who got claimed after being here for almost a year. It can take time.”

“I’m tired of waiting.” You were too afraid to say anything negative about the gods while in one of their cabins. Especially the messenger god. “I just feel really alone.”

Luke didn’t say anything, he wrapped one arm around your shoulders and the other at the side of your head and pulled you into a hug.

When you woke up Percy was still asleep, you normally didn’t take too much to the new kids but you liked this one. You would be the first one to admit that you were jealous of the new arrivals seeing as most of them would be claimed within weeks. There was no point in becoming buddy-buddy with someone who would go off and get so wrapped up in their new siblings and godly parent that they forget all about you. Three years of radio silence from the gods had made you a little bitter. Luke would argue that maybe it was more than a little.

“I’m gonna take Percy around camp today,” Luke was slouched against the pillow in your bed. He grabbed one of his shoes and forcefully put it on. “Wanna come?”

“Get your shoes off of my bed.” You shoved his leg off the side of the bed, forcing him to sit up next to you. “And I’ll pass, Annabeth and I are gonna talk capture the flag.” 

“Oh come on I thought you liked him?” Luke always tried to get you to join him but talking about nothing but getting claimed for 3 hours wasn’t your idea of fun. 

“Not that much.” Before Luke could respond Percy sat up from his spot on the floor with a jolt. You had been asking Charlie Beckendorf, a Hephaestus camper, to make more bed frames for the cabin for months but it kept falling to the bottom of his priority list. Over the past few years the amount of kids in the Hermes cabin has grown faster than you could accommodate.

“You okay?” Luke asked as he rose to his feet.

“Super.” Percy groaned as he pulled himself off of the ground.

“We all have them, you know.” Luke was always the first to comfort new campers. “Intense, recurring nightmares. That's normal here. And the daydreams, and the ADHD, and dyslexia. Demigods just process reality differently than humans do. For the first time in your life, you're just like everyone else.”

“So are you also…” Percy said slowly. “Do you not know who your-”

“Am I unclaimed?” Luke finished for him. He glanced over at you instinctually. “No, Hermes is my father.” Like always mentioning Hermes made Luke stand up straighter. “That doesn't matter, we're all on the same team here.”

“I’m unclaimed.” You told Percy. “I’ve been here for 3 years.”

“Why is that okay?” He was talking directly to you now. “Why do they get to bring us here to just ignore some of us?”

“I’ve been asking myself that since the day I got here.” You couldn’t help but chuckle, he sounded exactly like you. “I get how you’re feeling but no matter what happens you’re gonna be fine.”

“Spend too much time trying to figure out why the gods do whatever it is they do, you'll drive yourself crazy.” Luke warned. “Sooner you stop worrying about that, the sooner you can enjoy what this place actually does offer.”

“And what's that?” Percy asked.

“Glory.” Luke smirked. “Demigods have always fought for glory. They used to call it kleos. It's like this stuff that attaches itself to your name. Makes it bigger, scarier, more important. People listen closer when you talk, they work harder to be your friend and they think twice about messing with you.” Before Luke could finish Clarisse passed by bumping Percy in the shoulder. 

“Hey!” Percy exclaimed, causing Clarisse to quickly turn around and push him down to the ground. 

“Woah!” Luke stepped up to Clarisse. “Hey. Knock it off, Clarisse. It's like his first day, come on.” You grabbed Percy’s arm and helped him up off the ground.

“Wait, so this is the kid who killed the Minotaur.” She had a devilish smile on her face. “Is that right?”

“Yeah?” Percy said cautiously. 

“I'll bet. Look, you want attention around here, dummy? You better be ready for it when it comes.” Clarisse made a fake lunge for him, causing Percy to jump.

“Clarisse, let it go.” You chimed in. She glanced at you for a moment before turning away with her friends. You and Clarisse weren’t friends exactly, she wasn’t friends with anyone outside of her cabin, especially not an unclaimed kid, but you weren’t enemies. You got along well enough, you would spar together, you mutually respected each other. Every once in a while you might even have a few laughs at the campfire.

“Well, she seems nice.” Percy said flatly. 

“Ares kids.” Luke sighed. “They come by it honestly.”

“Maybe she’ll grow on you.” You shrugged. “I kinda like her, then again she doesn’t bother me.”

“Why don't they mess with you?” Percy asked Luke.

“They know better.” Luke said proudly. 

“Luke's the strongest swordsman at camp.” Chris explained.

“I’m second.” You chimed in. “For the record.”  

“So, they leave you alone because ‘glory’?” Percy asked and Luke nodded. “So if I get glory, Clarisse wouldn't mess with me either?”

“Exactly.”

“And people think I'm a big deal?”

“Well, sorta, but-” Luke started.

“I don’t know about all that.” You said

“And my dad's got no choice but to claim me.” Percy finished. You and Luke sighed and looked at eachother. You understood his eagerness to be seen. 

“You can't force the gods to do anything.” Luke told Percy gently.

“Believe me, I’d know. I tried.” You added.

“Well, yeah, but... it would make it harder for him to pretend I don't exist, right?” 

“It’s worth a shot.” You shrugged.

“It is?” Luke swiveled to look at you.

“I mean it couldn’t hurt.” You just wanted to give the poor kid some hope.

“Great.” Percy perked up. “Where do we start?”

When you had nightmares you knew you were in a dream but that didn’t make it any less scary. You were on a beach, it was dark, the sky shades of purple and blue. There were storms; the waves were five times higher than your head. You were alone, the beach extended as far as your eyes could see. With nothing else to do you began walking down the beach. With every step your feet became heavier- wait, no- you were sinking. The sand was vibrating causing you to sink further and further into it. You were struggling to try to pull your feet out of the sand until you heard voices that made you freeze. Luke. Then Annabeth. Grover. Clarisse. And a young boy's voice that you didn’t recognize. You could make out each of their voices but not what they were saying. Their voices were frantic, they were calling for help, they were in danger. You fought harder but it only made you sink faster.

“Luke!” You screamed out just as your head went beneath the sand.

You woke up with a jolt gasping for air, panting, and drenched in sweat. You peered to the bunk above you to see if you had woken Luke but there was no movement. You pulled yourself out of bed as quietly as possible to not wake anyone. You debated waking Luke but decided against it. You slipped your shoes on and grabbed a jacket that you kept by your bed. As quietly as you could you tiptoed across the cabin and out the front door. You went out the door past the Hephaestus cabin, then Apollo, Ares, then Poseidon. Just as you were about to pass the mess hall a voice erupted from the silence of the night. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” It was Luke. 

“Oh my gods, Luke.” You nearly doubled over with shock. “You didn’t have to sneak up on me.”

“Why are you out here?” He came close to you, placing his hands on the sides of your arms. “It’s the middle of the night. It’s freezing.”

“I- I had another nightmare.” 

“The same one?” He asked and you nodded. You had been at camp for almost a year now and had been having the same dream for almost six months. “Why are you out here?”

“I just needed fresh air, I guess.” You crossed your arms over your chest, honestly you didn’t know why you were out here.

Luke gave you a sympathetic smile. 

“Okay let’s walk then.”

You and Luke walked together quietly for a while. You walked through the woods until you reached the Long Island sound. It was the same beach as the one in your dream but even in the dead of night it wasn’t as cold, as scary as it was in your dreams. Sometimes after a particularly bad night you would come here to remind yourself that it was just a dream. This was the first time Luke had come with you to the beach and it gave you much more comfort. 

“This isn’t your first time out here is it?” Luke glanced at you with a smile, he knew the answer.

“No,” You chuckled. “I guess I find it relaxing.”

The two of you found a place to sit on the sand just above the tide. Luke sat to your left, your shoulders touching trying to conserve the little warmth between you. There was a silence between you that felt safe and comfortable. You rested your head on Luke’s shoulder and he rested his head against yours. You felt something cold touch the side of your hand and looked down to see Luke's hand inching closer to yours. It felt like you were moving in slow motion but eventually Luke had your hand clasped in his. You and Luke had always had a special relationship. From the second he found you in the cave and pulled you into his lap you were bonded. He gave you his bunk when you came to camp. Showed you around and always stayed at your side. Listened to you grovel about not being claimed day in and day out. You had hugged before but never held hands and it never felt like this before.

“You’re not alone.” Luke whispered to you. The sound of the waves and Luke’s voice were music to your ears. You were entranced, Luke was so close you could feel his breath on your cheek. The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon providing just enough light to bounce off of the water and reflect onto Lukes face. The light made his brown eyes glitter. You had never looked at Luke this way before. You were so close and millimeter by millimeter you were getting closer and closer-

“Oh!” You both exclaimed as the freezing cold water of the tide splashed up on you both, soaking you in sea water. Each of you rose to your feet eagerly running from the water before doubling over in laughter.

“Oh, that’s freezing!” You cried out through your laughs. When you finally caught your breath Luke was in front of you staring down at you seriously. “What is it?”

“I mean it,” He was breathing heavily. “You’re not alone here.” 

“I know Luke,” You nodded. “But-,” Luke cocked his head, unsure of what else you had to say.

“I’ve been alone my whole life Luke. No parents, no family. Camp was where I was supposed to find that. But my parent couldn’t care less that I even exist.” You rambled.

“I know that you’re upset-” Luke tried but you cut him off.

“I’m not upset Luke. I’m angry!” You shouted. You felt your face turn hot with anger, your heart beat fast. “I’m furious that they would abandon me-”

“Y/n-” Luke tried but you kept going.”

“They would humiliate me, over and over. My entire life!” You were fuming, your blood boiling.

“Y/n!” He shouted.

“What!” You yelled back. Just now you realized that Luke wasn’t looking at you. He was looking behind you. You turned around to see a massive wave, 30 feet high, suspended behind you. Your anger turned to confusion and just as it did the wave came crashing down at your feet, returning to the sea like it was never there.

Feel free to leave feedback, suggestions, and headcannons in the inbox. I love incorporating your guy's ideas!

Taglist:

@fudosl @lenasvoid @light-23 @petrichorvzlia-blog @heartzflwers @vampsaddicted @bbgkaykay @shiara04 @teigo-the-explorer @number-onekidqueen

#luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson #pjo fandom #pjo series #luke x reader #percy jackson show #percy jackson x reader #luke pjo #pjo x reader #pjo x you #pjo

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA to refuse tutoring my nephew even though I'm not sure what he did wrong?

So I (24, F) have been tutoring my nephew/the son of my mum's close friend (10, M) for a couple of weeks now. His mum pays me for the hours I spend teaching him and honestly despite the kid being obviously ADHD I don't really mind him getting constantly distracted because it's clear he still understands what I'm explaining to him, so we had a pretty good relationship up until this point as I was way more understanding of him than any other tutors or even his own mother, although I don't really know him THAT well.

During our tutoring sessions my cat, Pudding (14, F) would usually stay in the same room with us. She likes to stay in the same room as other people but usually doesn't let strangers pet her and will go away if bothered too much. Well, Nephew being distractable as he is would often go up to her to pet her as he would answer a question of mine or just as a thing between answering questions. Strangely enough Pudding did let him do that and didn't seem to be THAT bothered by it, so I too ignored it and just let him do it.

Now, here's the issue: A few days ago after we finished our tutoring session for that day I left the room to wash my hands in the kitchen since we were eating snacks during the session. My house's kitchen is literally DIRECTLY next to the room where we have our tutoring sessions so it couldn't have taken longer than 10-15 seconds from me leaving before I heard a cry from Pudding. "Oh, she must've finally gotten annoyed with Nephew's behaviour, I'll tell him to stop bothering her." I thought to myself as I finished washing my hands, yet before I was even able to make it back to the room I heard a second, much louder meow, the kind of meow a cat only makes if they ACTUALLY get hurt. So now, properly concerned, I round the corner into the room and see Nephew sitting right next to where Pudding is still laying, now with her ears flat and looking at him. He must've seen the confusion on my face because the first thing he said was "We were just playing." to which I blurted out that clearly she was not in the mood to play and walked over to check on her. While doing that, I noticed that there was a blanket slightly covering Pudding's hind legs, so I assumed maybe Nephew accidentally put his weight there without realizing she had her paws there. I VERY GENTLY pulled back the blanket and VERY GENTLY touched her legs to see if they were hurt, and then she BIT me and finally ran away. Of course I don't blame her, and in fact that only strengthened my concern because Pudding is a VERY polite cat, if she's bothered by anything she will just leave and if she bites for play it's always very gentle and doesn't leave a mark, this was not that. Afterwards I couldn't get any useful information out of Nephew as to what exactly he did, he just kept saying that he was petting her and she got annoyed which was clearly not true, so I dropped the subject and just sent him home.

Now it's been a few days since that happening and I've checked on Pudding's legs a few times since then. She doesn't respond to me touching them at all and she doesn't limp or anything so either she didn't get injured, or the legs were never the issue in the first place and me touching her was simply the last straw in that already stressful situation for her. Despite that however, I find myself not wanting to have Nephew over for tutoring anymore as I'm afraid that something like this might happen again when I'm literally gone from the room for less than a minute. It really annoys me that I have absolutely no clue what happened while I was gone, I don't even have a way to know if Nephew did whatever he did intentionally or by accident since him saying they were just "playing" could very well be just his honest perception of the situation, or him lying and being vague on purpose because he knows he did something wrong. The reason why I feel like Nephew might be lying about doing bad things on purpose is because Nephew's family has two cats, so I really feel like he should know better already and be more careful. Another point is the fact that this literally happened the INSTANT I was gone from the room, almost as if he was waiting for me to be gone to do something (as far as I recall I haven't ever left him alone with Pudding before this point), though admittedly that could just be unlucky coincidence. Plus, I find it REALLY hard to believe he'd be able to make Pudding cry like that on accident, I've genuinely NEVER heard her make a sound like that, ever, not even at the vet's. On the other hand however I know that he was failing his math class badly before I started tutoring him and I'm almost certain he'd start to fail again if I stopped helping him. Not only that, I'd have to come up with a lie about being too busy to do tutoring or something else since obviously I can't tell his mother "Hey your son might've done something bad but I'm not really sure and don't really have any proof and can't even tell if it was really intentional or not", since I realize how ridiculous that sounds despite still genuinely feeling incredibly uncomfortable about the whole situation.

So with all of that out of the way, would I be the asshole for denying him my tutoring services just because I feel uncomfortable about the idea of him possibly hurting my cat on purpose, even when I don't really have any proof that he did it on purpose or would do it again?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[morlock-holmes]

Notice in the post below that the only named task that the OP struggled with is homework?

Now, people diagnosed with ADHD or similar disorders often do struggle with tasks that we might actually want to do, but almost always, the diagnosis is linked in everyone's mind to an inability to do homework.

But homework is fucking bullshit.

I really think it's absurd to ignore that fact when talking about how you complete tasks.

"Gosh, my kid seems to have a lot of trouble focusing on dull make-work which I force him to do for two hours every single day, why could this be?"

I spent literally as little time in school as I could and still graduate. As in, by my junior or senior year the principal sat me down and said, "If you skip anymore school we aren't going to be able to graduate you from High School."

And yet... When I bothered to go, I got good grades. I did generally quite well on tests and did eventually graduate. I'm quite proud of that as an act of self-mastery but it does raise the question:

Why was so much energy spent on trying to get me to go to school for all that time when I was demonstrably able to get the benefits with literal years less work than they wanted me to put in?

Why was so much time spent trying to devote those years to schoolwork when it simply wasn't necessary for me to learn?

Homework is a microcosm of that whole question. I always wanted to know,

"So, if I can skip 60% of the homework and still get an "A" on the test, why do you try to force me to do it?"

And to this day I have never gotten a good answer.

So: I saw no value in most of my homework and that hasn't changed to this day.

So, here's a pop quiz for the people wondering why their kids with diagnoses don't do their homework no matter what planning and techniques adults supply them with:

What would your kid have to do to spend less of their valuable time on homework?

"Well, if they just knuckled down and got it done..."

BZZT! WRONG! You get a "D-" on this test and I really hope you apply yourself more to the next one, you have so much potential...

If they "forget about it" then they have to do even less.

Now, of course that means that your kid is in a state of constant stress from avoidance. They are thinking, "Man, I'm going to get in so much trouble for not doing this, but I just can't seem to force myself to do it, and anyway I don't fucking want to."

You think that they'd be better off spending two stressful hours on their homework and then being able to relax the rest of the time. They feel like they'll be happier not doing it at all and feeling a vague undercurrent of stress as they go about their leisure time.

What's the third option if they want to spend less time on homework?

Oh, nothing? Is it nothing whatsoever until they graduate from school?

This is infuriatingly counter-productive. We spend literal years teaching ADHD kids that avoidance and procrastination are the only ways to exert control over their lives in the face of unpleasant situations imposed from outside.

Now, in point of fact this is absolutely not the case for adult life, which offers a plethora of ways to reduce pointless make-work imposed on you by outside authorities and, in any case, rarely bothers to impose two hours per day of unpaid, unrewarding make-work on people anyway.

How much of the difficulty ADHD people have with cleaning the toilet or whatever is because psychologically, they still think of it as homework? Cleaning the toilet is not homework; it rewards you with a clean toilet at the end and it's entirely possible to defer it, or hire someone else to do it, or find shortcuts. But if the major psychological task of your childhood is homework, maybe it might take quite a long time to think that there could even be anything aside from homework?

#psychology #homework #Parents get so uneasy when I say that kids are right to avoid homework #But a lot of the time they are! #ADHD #executive dysfunction

[knoxic]

A kiss may ruin a human life.

Oscar Wilde

-Masterlist- part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4

wc: 2,7k

warnings: sexual tension (?), mentions of death and kidnappings, reader has adhd, horny aaron, miscommunication again. pls let me know if there's more!

a/n: the story changed a bit but it will go back to the first plot eventually! is just that i had a few more ideas and decided to add them here instead of writing another fic. part 3 is aaron's pov so we'll get back to the angst of part 1. no use of y/n.

a/n²: did i make it seem like reader is gender neutral?

Silence.

Nothing but the sounds of your breaths could be heard in the room.

A room that now felt cold and dark, if it was uncomfortable before, now it was unbearable. None of you spoke, you were still waiting for him to say something and he was too shocked to form any coherent sentence.

"If you're not going to say anything-"

"No- i just, don't know where to start." his voice was low, quiet and unsure.

"Start from," you paused, trying to decide what you wanted to know more, "Sunday morning."

"What?" was he playing dumb?

"We got this case on sunday morning, that was when you started acting weird." please Hotch...

"Oh," he still didn't know what to do, but whatever he did now would change your relationship anyway, so, he should probably tell you the truth. "It's because, i- i knew we would have to share a room," he paused to find words that explained what he was feeling but you took it another way.

"What is so wrong about being around me that always gets you like this?" your voice broke a little, and you hated yourself for showing weakness.

"There's nothing wrong!" that came out louder than he intended and he saw the way you flinched, "sorry, but i need you to understand, there is nothing wrong about you. Please just stay quiet so i can finish this?" he pleaded and those usually frowned eyebrows were now raised, his eyes were pleading.

"Okay."

There was a pause, he was gathering his thoughts and giving you both time to calm down.

"From the moment i heard we would be staying together, i knew i would have to get a hold of myself, as a unit chief i couldn't just let go like i wanted to... like i want to," what?

"I love spending time with you, more than i should and it scares me. I thought that if i didn't get too close i would be fine and it worked, until we shared a room for the first time," he sighed, "You were so sweet and caring and it surprised me," that sounded more like a question "i expected that but i didn't expect to... like it so much."

"Hotch-"

"Wait." he glared at you.

When you remained quiet he started speaking again "Ever since you came to my office, i knew i was in trouble." he sighed and shook his head, "When Strauss told me about you i was ready to treat you just like any other agent who came to my unit, but when i saw you... I didn't know what it was about you that kept pulling me in but i didn't want it to stop, being around you healed a part of me that i wasn't aware was bleeding. The way you treated me, with no judgement for what I've done... you treated me like everybody else and still made me feel special... i let myself be fooled by hope, of... what we could be."

...

At this point you were speechless, Hotch has never said so much and your mind was still processing what he implied.

"I know it's wrong, i am your superior, fuck, I'm your boss, the one you should look up to, the one who should take care of you and here i am being the creepy guy." he laughed but there was no humor behind it. "I am so sorry i made you uncomfortable, it was never my intention to let my feelings come forward. If you want to file a complaint against me, i understand."

"Hotch... no." it came as a whisper, you coughed and tried again, "No, but, i still don't know what it means..." fuck, I'm dumb. "Feelings?"

"Feelings. For you."

"Like, romantic feelings?"

"Yes? i mean, if they were harmless i wouldn't have to tell you," with his usual frown back he looked at you unsure, as if you were discussing an unsub's methodology.

"Oh..." harmless? why would it be harmless? him having feelings for you was all you wanted!... file a complaint?

"That is... what i wanted for as long as I've known you." you looked at him not sure what to expect but he kept eye contact, you could see the moment he understood what you meant.

He did not look relieved.

...

"Fuck." he whispered and threw his head back, rubbing his eyes roughly with the pad of his fingers. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know, but from the way you're acting i take it you don't want to do anything..." it hurt to realize he did not want to do something, deep down you knew it wasn't so simple but at the moment you couldn't really think past the possible heartbreak.

"It's not like that."

"It seems exactly like that..."

"I'm just not sure we should act on it, i am not good for you." He raised his voice and turned so he was sitting with his feet touching the floor.

"So we should just pretend this conversation didn't happen?" you said while pushing the blankets and mirroring his position, except his legs were covered by plain black pants. Your grey shorts that barely showed underneath your oversized shirt did not help your fake confidence.

Your question was met with silence.

"Maybe." Yes.

Careful to not let him see how disappointed you were, you kept his gaze, looking just as tough as him.

Under your stare, his resolve almost slipped until you got up, the same way you did after finishing an interrogation. The way you seemed so sure of yourself almost got him believing that what he said didn't affect you. That same sound of your bag opening is what snapped him out of his trance.

"What are you doing?"

"I'll spend the night with Emily." your voice was low and steady. The walls you built up to protect yourself from things that could hurt you coming back up strongly, walls that you used to hide your emotions when you didn't want people to know how you were feeling and my god did they work. He hated to be met with a emotionless expression when you turned to grab something from your bed-

"You don't have to..."

"Yes i do." again, low and steady. "I'll sleep there tonight and tomorrow I'll book another room."

He didn't know what to say, that was the best thing to do but you being away meant he wouldn't get to hear you breathing...

"We only have a few hours before we need to go back to work, you should let Emily sleep." trying to make you feel guilty didn't seem to work as you kept gathering your things. He was getting anxious now and when you passed him to pick up your phone from the bedside table he pulled the device out of your hand. "Stay. it's too late for you to be walking around the hotel." he was hoping that if he used his work voice maybe you'd listen.

"Give it back."

"No."

He was towering over you and the feeling he felt before came back, if you kept looking at him like that, he would break.

He couldn't afford to break.

So he left you standing there, walking to the bathroom with your phone in hand. You stood like that even after he slammed the door, shocked he had really just taken your phone just like your parents did when you were a teenager. After the shock passed you almost laughed at how insane this was, did he really think that this would stop you?

He knew it didn't stop you but he hoped it would. He had taken your phone but it's not like you needed it if you were going to stay with Emily. Looking at himself in the mirror, the eyes he was met with did not seem like him, for the first time in a while he did not know what to do. When he went inside he didn't even know what he was thinking exactly, only knew that he wanted to get away from you as fast as possible without making you leave the room. Looking around, his eyes fell to the same towel he used earlier that now was folded beside the sink, in his rush to take a shower he didn't think much about where to put it but he was sure he hadn't folded it.

You don't remember hearing the lock, if he didn't lock the door you could just go in and get your phone back, even the idea of fighting again seemed appealing, maybe if you fought with him some more your feelings would dissipate...

A shower always helped him take his mind off of things but right now he could barely move without being reminded of your presence. The towel you folded because he had thrown it somewhere carelessly and you knew he would want to shower again before work, your own towel and dirty clothes that laid together on the floor, the liquid soap you used that normally would be kept in a corner with your skin care products but that now was right beside his shampoo, you were also desperate for sleep and yet you made up time to fold his towel... yeah a shower wouldn't hurt.

Hearing the water running somehow duplicated your want to go inside, finding yourself right in front of the door with your hand on the handle when-

"Fuck!" a whispered scream, muffled by the water yet distinct enough for you to understand.

If you were to go in, you would have to be prepared to face him... the door would make noise and there was a chance that maybe the curtain was not closed enough and he would see you coming in, if you were to go in... it would have to be now.

This is definitely not what he planned to do, the initial idea was to take a shower to clean his head from any thoughts of you, not to fill it it more thoughts... definitely not these kind of thoughts. Now he was hard and even more frustrated.

Both his hands were on the wall, his head resting on it while he contemplated what to do, touching himself while thinking of you when you were at the other side of the door right after a fight felt dirty. When his left hand started slipping down a couple knocks echoed followed by your voice, no longer the voice that made him feel small.

"Hotch? can i come in?" he should tell you no, what if you somehow managed to see the evidence of his perverted thoughts?

"Yes." yes please, come in, come see for yourself that I'm just as worst as those guys on the street that you held yourself back from punching.

You were right. The door made a loud noise that made you cringe, looking at the mirror you were met with the damp white curtain, the fact that he was standing naked behind it right now was enough to make you forget why you were here in the first place, a loud buzzing made you remember. Walking quickly to where he had put your phone, right above his towel, picking it up you were met with a call from Rossi and 3 new messages.

"Dave is calling." you figured Aaron had also heard the phone buzzing. "Hello?"

"You're awake!"

"Uhm, yeah..." weird.

"Good, is Aaron with you?" come on Dave, you know he is.

"Yes he is." you were facing the mirror and saw when Aaron reached a hand up to pull the curtain back before letting go, apparently he remembered you were there and he couldn't just get out, especially given his current state...

"Great, i called him 3 times and he didn't pick up" there was a pause, "Thought that was unusual, he usually picks up in the first ring..." he was talking in a suggestive tone but, he often used it when talking about Aaron.

"Oh, he's taking a shower..." no, no, no you shouldn't have said that! he can probably hear the shower running-

"At 3am?" he laughed, "Weird guy, but well, tell him boy genius found something that could help the profile, we're heading back to the station right now."

"Okay, I'll let him know."

Guess you weren't sleeping tonight, at least Aaron did, having a sleep deprived guy driving you wouldn't be good.

"What did he want?" you didn't realize you hadn't said anything after the call ended, snapping your head up you were met with Aaron watching you from behind the curtain, his hair was damp and he looked flushed.

"Spence found something, they're heading back to the station now." he nodded, his wet hair shaking and a few droplets of water falling down his face, it looked obscene really. "Anything else?"

"He said he called you and found strange that you didn't answer," you were avoiding looking at him now but still saw in your peripheral vision when he nodded while humming.

There was a moment of awkwardness until you realized you could just leave, so you did just that.

"Wait!" he called out before you could fully step out of the room, "Can you hand me the towel?"

You didn't answer but still went back inside to grab it, the fabric felt soft and comforting unlike his wet and cold hand when it accidentally touched your fingers.

"Wait for me? I'll be out quick."

"I don't-"

"Please?"

"Sure." you sighed.

...

Closing the door behind yourself felt more relieving than catching an unsub... okay, that was an overstatement but the feeling was there. Not knowing how long it would take for him to be out but aware he only had the clothes he was wearing to bed in the bathroom, you tried to change as fast as you could, having Aaron seeing even more skin would be too embarrassing.

You had done a good work earlier picking up your clothes, all of them were stuffed inside your go bag and you could see a white button up, white tank top and the black pants you wore today sticking out, it would have to do. Deciding to take one step at a time you pulled the shorts down, your shirt was big enough to cover your ass if Aaron suddenly opened the door, thankfully, it did not happen. Taking your shirt off felt a bit too risky, just having the cool air of the room hit your bare back and chest would make you shiver, if Aaron saw it you would be left shaking. Pants buttoned and shirt left for later you picked up your sneakers, boots were too much for a time you were supposed to be sleeping, just as you were finishing tying them the loud noise of the door opening and heavy footsteps filled the room.

"Ready?" he seemed out of breath, you hadn't looked up yet but you were sitting in your bed and he had to walk in front of you to get to his. When he did, you could see the black pants pooling around his feet.

"Not yet."

Picking the shirt and tank top you had throw a little further on the bed you risked a glance in his direction, bare shoulders, pale enough you could make out the outline of where his hand were gripping a second before, his tense muscles were aching even more now, having to interact with you and pretend to not have almost jerked off to the thought of you minutes ago had only made it worse.

Hearing your bed creaking he looked back, he supposed you were walking to the bathroom to change your shirt, oh what he would do to have you change right in front of him... fuck, not again!

Adjusting his pants, again, he tried to focus on the case.

Women around 20-25 were being kidnapped, found dead 3 days later. The case was pretty much like any other but the city decided to not cooperate, the team was stressed and it doubled when another woman went missing yesterday, one of the police officers knew her family and almost started a fistfight with Derek when we took a break, not pleased with the fact that we weren't machines and actually needed to take breaks eventually.

"Now i am." you were back, he hadn't even realized he continued moving while thinking.

"Good. Let's get going."

Now with the work mask put on, both were ready to act like no words were exchanged tonight.

a/n³: i read this like 3 times and i still don't trust my work lol, I'll try to find a beta reader so i can post faster.

#aaron hotchner #criminal minds #aaron hotchner x reader

[bomberqueen17]

*vibrating slightly in place*

So ok. When I was in kindergarten, my classroom was arranged so that four desks were linked together, so we were in little groups. I used to regularly vibrate my desk and the three it was attached to, with three other children in them, across several feet of floor space, until the linked desks ran into the teacher's desk, which was larger and did not move with the force of my vibrations. I was a good student, but hard to control, and markedly uneven in my ability to like. Do anything. "Well," my mom said once, upon beholding my entire spectrum of a report card, "we'd just hate to be bored."

When I graduated with my bachelor's degree, seventeen years later, my mom said "I never thought you could do it," and when I, shocked, said "what?" she said "well what with your ADHD and all," and I said "my what?" and she said "well, i never wanted to shake your confidence, and I thought once they put a label on you it'd be over, but you super have like, turbo ADHD. Why, what do you think your deal is?" She said it nicely and not in those words at all, but it was the first time I'd ever really realized that I wasn't just mildly eccentric, I did seem to actually have something wrong with me.

I've been trying to get a diagnosis ever since. I've never been able to. I had no health insurance at all for a huge chunk of my twenties, which put a damper on things. One doctor told me "you'd know if you had that" and when I was like "I... do" she was like "no i mean. you'd already be being treated." Which shows a wild and totally unwarranted optimism in our medical system, but she was a resident. The doctor overseeing her care of me suggested I try taking fish oil capsules. To "rebuild my brain tissue".

I did. It didn't help. I still buy them but mostly I use them now to get my cat to take pills.

Eventually in my 30s my doctors started sort of believing me maybe, or at least realizing they couldn't really brush me off (I have gotten... less easily-cowed as I've aged) but they were all like "oh, I can't evaluate that. You'll have to research and find a place that can do a neuropsych eval for you. Insurance doesn't cover those. So good luck. Have some antidepressants in the meantime."

I slid into my 40s, still undiagnosed. I read as many self-help books on the topic as I could find, did all the checklists I found. They all said "girl you super have like turbo ADHD." I tried meditation. I tried divination. I tried bullet journaling, which was hilarious. I tried yoga.

I actually damaged myself doing yoga and am banned from yoga, but at least I'm in physical therapy now. (Word to the wise: if you have really really flexible hip joints, don't fucking do yoga. "Usually I don't have to tell people not to get into that position," said my bemused physical therapist. "Oh," I said, blissfully bepretzeled. "It feels super good." "Mm," she said, "you've torn your labrum. Stop doing that." Now I do really, really boring stretches that don't feel nearly as good, but I also can walk without limping, so. Like. We take the good with the bad I guess.)

Anyway. My PCP in January was like "wait you didn't follow my super vague directions to go see 'the guys downstairs' and see if they can squeeze you into their eleven-month waiting period to get an evaluation that i cannot mention without saying it's several thousand dollars and your insurance surely won't cover it? you must not want this diagnosis very badly!" (At no point has anyone ever given me a phone number for 'the guys downstairs'. I still don't know what she meant by any of those directions. This PCP and I technically speak the same language but I've never understood a single thing she has told me and I don't think she understands a word I say in return, everything I tell her seems to be such a shock to her. You blame antidepressants for your weight gain? I've never heard of that. Ma'am please look up what the incredibly common side effects of antidepressants are.)

I called around but noplace both took my insurance and was accepting new patients. Finally I gave up. Then my Dude went on our insurance company's website and took over the search. He found that there's some kind of concierge service thing, which the insurance company normally charges $450/mo for but our plan includes it, because it's pretty well-hidden on the website and most people aren't ever going to find it anyway. So he said, you know what, I am going to instigate a query on this.

They took two weeks but eventually came back with a list of 13 places, most of them not remotely local. Ten of them were red X's, disqualified for varying reasons-- one because the phone number didn't work, another because it's a seven-hour drive away and doesn't do telehealth. One was in New Jersey. None of them were the local places I had already called.

Two of them were valid, but the insurance wouldn't cover the evaluation for various reasons.

One of them was fully covered, the insurance company said. So I went there.

Their website said "no you're not we can't see you". But Dude was like, call them on the phone. Surely, surely, the concierge service couldn't have lied??? Bet, I said, and called them and left a message, and said to him, if they call me back I will eat a hat.

But they did. They called me back. "Our insurance checker widget is down," they said. "But we do take your insurance! We can see you. We just don't know how much it will cost."

Ominous.

But. They could see me later in the week, via a telehealth appointment.

So I signed up.

The appointment was this morning. I turned up. Their insurance checker thingy still wasn't working so they couldn't be sure how much the appointment would cost me. I at this point don't care, and gave them my HSA credit card, and said do what you will.

I waited 45 minutes and then texted the number they'd texted me from with the confirmation, and a moment later the guy showed up. "Whoops," he said, "that system isn't working quite right either!"

He talked to me for like. Three minutes, and was like "yeah that sounds. Pretty textbook. I'm going to prescribe you stimulants." He then proceeded to take a very basic medical history, and I recognized all the questions because I have researched stimulant medication for ADHD so much. And he was like "We're going to start with Adderall, check at your pharmacy in like an hour." And then he gave me extremely useful and detailed instructions on how to take it, when to take it, what side effects to worry about, what to expect, what to note down in case it might mean a problem, and how to be safe about it. (He asked me three times if I'd ever been suicidal, and it had also been in the online pre-screening. I am aware that can be a rare but very serious side effect of stimulants!)

And then I went to Rite-Aid and I now have 16 pills in my possession, and i am going to wait until tomorrow morning to start taking them, and I am already scheduled for my follow-up in 15 days.

I have absolutely no idea how much any of that is going to cost, but for the record the pills were eleven dollars.

So. I don't know why the last decade of my life has been spent being told that a comprehensive and unattainably expensive neuropsychological evaluation was my only option. Maybe this place is a disreputable pill mill or whatever. But. I am going to get to try to medicate this disorder that has warped my entire life to this point, and I am going to try to see if I can't have some more control over my life, and if it doesn't work then at least I will know, instead of on my deathbed being like "i wonder if i'd ever tried amphetamines maybe I'd have been able to finish a project ever in my life, guess we'll never know".

Which was what I was starting to genuinely think was going to happen.

Literally though why can't a primary care doctor just refer you to a psychiatrist who can then decide whether you need an assessment or whether your condition is likely to respond well to a basic diagnosis?? I get needing the whole nine yards if you're not sure what's wrong with this kid and you don't want to give them the wrong thing-- like I know misdiagnosing a bipolar sufferer with depression can give you really bad outcomes, for example-- but-- I don't know? I don't know.

I just want to be able to start and finish projects. What I'd really love is to be able to make to-do lists meaningfully, as that is an ability I did used to have and now absolutely don't. I legit cannot make a to-do list in any meaningful or useful way.

So we'll see. I'm going to keep a journal and the real test of whether the pills work is to see whether I can actually keep the journal.

But I need to find some kind of edible hat, at some point, just to keep my word.

#about the author #actually adhd

[homunculus-argument]

I'm very glad to see that your new therapist is working out well for you so far! It makes me think that I probably should find a good one myself, however I don't really know how to go about that. Not locating one, I mean getting into the issues I need to deal with, especially if I don't really know where to begin beyond "I'm emotionally and mentally fucked up and would like to not be". As someone who's seen multiple therapists, even if the others didn't really click for you, do you have any advice about that?

To be honest, not really. It's the same annoying thing as what people say about dating - you just have to keep trying with new ones until you find one that clicks. But not knowing where to begin is a starting point, and that's still progress if you can find a therapist that seems to be helping with trying to start figuring out what the problem is. My first therapist was the best match I could find at the time, with my problem of "I don't know why I'm like this", and she helped me start unwrapping what I even mean by that.

After she helped me through getting diagnosed with ADHD, and the problems caused by being undiagnosed and unmedicated were resolved, I started to feel like she can't help with the ones that remained. I once told her that being in therapy felt like that joke of a man who goes to a therapist on all fours because he thinks he's a dog, and comes out walking upright - he still thinks he's a dog, but the therapist trained him to walk on his hind legs so it doesn't show. She laughed and agreed that this is essentially what therapy is, and that's when I figured that that isn't what I need from therapy.

The second one was the best match I could find at the time - now that I had been trained out of acting insane, it was easier to start untangling what was making me act in unhinged ways in the first place. Going into what I was feeling and what kind of experiences had trained me into having that kind of responses to that kind of situations. That was useful for a while, but after a time I started to feel like she was trying to make me complacent with how I am by reassuring me that there was nothing wrong with me - she tried to validate my feelings by telling me that I'm ok, and I felt invalidated by the way she was denying that there still was something wrong with me, and denying that I'm not ok.

In three years of therapy, I had gained enough clarity about what kind of a problem we're even talking about, that once my last session with my second therapist was done, I looked up a therapist that specialises in one specific problem that I hadn't even been aware of when I started with my first therapist, and which my second therapist reassured me would fix itself on its own once I'm better. Three years of therapy had made me aware enough of my own problems to be able to find a specialist and point a huge crack on the wall, point at it and go "look at that thing. That's not supposed to be there, right?"

And have her go "oh yeah, that's bad. Yikes."

[labelleizzy]

Sometimes I just have to go back to old habits. Like back in the day, I was getting daily emails from the website Flylady.net.

Got my shoes on. Got my kitchen timer on. Challenged myself to see how much better I could make the kitchen look in 10 minutes.

I cleared the kitchen island. Put away all the food, got all the dirty dishes into the sink. Started a load of laundry. Made up my third cup of coffee. Washed out some recycling and got it to the bin. Oh, now I can see the acetaminophen which I need to take today.

Do I still have a big mess? Yes I do. I came home from 2-week trip, and I'm still finding stuff I need to put away and laundry I need to do.

But my ADHD ass developed the self-care habits, routines, tips and tricks, originally in the late '90s due to this nice southern lady. She used to send out daily emails encouraging us to take care of ourselves and giving us ideas on how to tackle big home care projects, self-care projects, but mostly home care.

It was a lot of email. And not being Christian, I didn't always appreciate her dropping of God references. But without her structure, without her having figured out that there was tons of us out there, struggling with our lives and managing our shit...

She helped me a lot. The chaos is mostly controlled. (She used to backronym CHAOS as "Can't Have Anybody Over Syndrome" heh)

I'm no longer ashamed of my habitat (and also, thank you, @unfuckyourhabitat for continuing the momentum of this particular way of working).

Gonna finish my coffee ☕ and then set the timer for another 10 minutes. Got a friend coming over for dinner 🍽️ and I can stand to do a bit more tidying up.

Use the tools that work for you!

#flylady #yahoo groups #getting organized #getting stuff done #pre pomodoro #You can do anything for 15 minutes #finally loving yourself #izzy writes #izzy's life #ufyh #personal #tidying #adulting #use the tools that work for you #adhd tips

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam, how did you come to the conclusion you should be tested for neurodivergence? I've been reading a lot of Temple Grandin (Visual Thinking is fantastic) and see so much of myself in her books. But, I, too, am, let's just say well into adulthood, and I don't know if my life would change that much with a diagnosis. The only thing I can think of doing with a diagnosis is telling my siblings and childhood bullies that they picked on someone who had a reason for being "weird." But it doesn't change anything. Beyond the medication, did you find any solace? Thank you for sharing your journey.

I was just thinking I should do a post about this....

I don't recall the specifics and have never been able to find the post again, but sometime prior to 2019 I made a joke about having a short attention span, and someone said something like "Oh, did you finally get a diagnosis?" and I said haha no, I don't have ADHD, and a bunch of readers went, "Uh, you very clearly do." Some of them added that they thought I knew and was just being discreet about it. (As if I have ever been discreet about anything in my life.)

So I figured, okay, probably there's some level of neurodivergence there, given that my mother and siblings all have various diagnoses, and my father was clearly autistic. (Knowing what we know now about how ADHD can mask as other mental illnesses, there's a strong chance this comes from my maternal grandmother, who was the person in the family I was most like when she was alive.) I tried a couple of times to get evaluated and always had either slow or nonexistent responses from the clinics I reached out to, so I stopped trying. I had a ton of coping mechanisms in place and was in a good spot in my life, so I thought honestly, what would it change?

But by the end of 2021, while I was still in a pretty good financial place, and my career was doing well, I could tell that if things kept up as they were I was going to tank my job purely through being unable to get through a day doing productive work the way I used to.

I thought, well, if this is ADHD and it's getting worse because the whole fucking world is on fire, I have two options: I can assume I have it and just do the reading and figure shit out on my own, or I can get evaluated, get professional advice, and possibly get medicated. That seemed like the best return on investment, so that's what I worked on. My goal was primarily medication, because I didn't see myself being able to change much else about my situation on my own. And, truthfully, medication has been the biggest change -- I actually have an essay about that queued for the anniversary of my starting Adderall. But while it hasn't been a massive life-altering world-shattering change, all of this was worth it purely for the medication.

Uh, momentary sidebar in my memoir: there are downsides to having a diagnosed disability -- discrimination, legal barriers to certain things like holding government jobs or adopting, etc. Those have to be weighed when you're considering evaluation. If you think you may have autism, there's not necessarily an advantage to having a formal diagnosis unless you need accommodations; if you think you may have ADHD, the huge advantage is access to medication, which doesn't exist for autism as far as I'm aware. So your particular flavor of neurodivergence might dictate whether you get a diagnosis, or whether you just start operating on the assumption you have it. Both are valid, I think, it really depends on what's going on in your life and what you want to change.

Anyway, I have been doing other research, reading journal articles and pop psychology and talking to people, and that's been good, but even if I had none of that, the medication has been so helpful in getting me back on an even keel and then making life even better.

This sounds kind of weird to say but I'm not generally someone who needs a lot of solace. There is some relief in knowing that at least some of my fuckups in life weren't something I could have prevented by simply having more strength of character or working harder, and that's nice, but it's something I could have had without a formal diagnosis -- just like you could simply tell your siblings and bullies you have a diagnosis. (Being real, I doubt they'd care; bullies gonna bully whether you had a reason to be weird or not, and none of that would have been your fault regardless of your neurology. But it's all very situational, as I'm sure you know.) I wasn't badly bullied as a kid and there's nobody really to...tell, in the sense you're thinking of. But I didn't get into it for emotional solace; I got into it to fix a life that was, albeit extremely slowly, starting to fall apart. So if you're someone, as most people are, who derives emotional satisfaction or catharsis from having the diagnosis, I think it probably would be pretty helpful. But even if you aren't, like me, if you can get medication or accomodations, I think it's worth it.

#sam has adhd

[inkskinned]

i keep thinking about hobbies and how i often spill over myself to pick up new ones. i have adhd, i end up trying something for like a month and then just getting far enough in it that i move on, satisfied.

and that should be fine; but it's never fine.

i am a pretty decent artist; but i can't just make art for my dnd campaign, i should be selling dnd maps and character designs and scene setting pieces. i can't just make my friends matching earrings, i need to get an etsy and ship them internationally and take bulk orders. i make pretty good props and decorations and use them to throw my friends parties - but i should be running a party planning business and start taking paying clients and networking and putting my skills to actual use.

for some reason, i never figured out the specifics of pottery. it was a fun class and i enjoyed myself - and still, i'm embarrassed, years later, that i put in all that useless effort. everything i make has to be stunning. stellar. i should have applied myself more. maybe i'm too lazy. maybe i'm broken and selfish and needy. actually creative people would have kept going; they would be bettering themselves at every possible opportunity.

we find ourselves in this trap, even accidentally: we need to commodify our time, because it is a commodity. if we spend our efforts and our time not earning, isn't that the same thing as burning free money? and god forbid you ever take up a hobby that ends up being more expensive than you thought. you sit in your car and you look at the receipt and in your head you hear a conversation that isn't even happening - your mom or your friend or your partner all saying oh great. not this shit again. it's always something with you, and it never actually means anything.

i have realized this horrible thing, recently - i'll get excited to start a project, pick up a new hobby. and then i just... stop myself. i start thinking about the amount of time it will take, and how it'll look in my monthly budget. what if i can't even produce a good enough final product. sure, it's exciting to think about how i could make my friend her own custom dice. but i'm just polluting the earth if i don't get it right. better not bother. better not try.

restless, i get caught in the negative space. the feeling that oh god, i want to create. and that horrible sense - yeah, but i don't have the time to just put to waste.

#hobbies #writeblr #what stage of weirdness to write about hobbies on my hobby writing blog #although i know OBJECTIVELY i am a creative person #i often forget to label myself that bc i don't feel im an ARTISTIC person bc i don't do anything like that professionally #writing doesn't even feel like a hobby i think that surprises nobody for me to be like #it would be easier for me to stop . like. breathing. #which feels cheesy and trite but listen im running late for a meeting and all i really want to say is like #i couldn't even consider writing my hobby bc it makes my skin crawl bc it makes it sound like it's not important to me #bc we really devalue hobbies. like entirely. #it HAS to be a job. it must #also idk if this is clear but i personally get stuck in this space where i CANT create bc i am putting so much pressure on myself #to make it RIGHT #and im like ... idk i only have an hour #so probably shouldnt get involved in this thing

[ss-shitstorm]

Hey I know you’ve probably already been asked this but what type of chemistry do you use for breaking bread like biochem and where did you learn this or have any book recommendations to pick it up? Also ty in advance I love your writing!!💕💕

oh my fucking god. oh my god. buddy. buddy you have made my fucking LIFE ASKING THIS OH GOD

So like, most of the chemistry I've used so far has just been Genchem and O Chem(with a wee few modifications to make it believable as a Cybertronian discipline, like Transformium being able to hold 4 bonds like Carbon but preferentially forming bonds w metals and needing an EMP pulse to interact w more electronegative atoms) I may wind up needing to get into a bit of Inorganic chemistry, but that's probably fewer and further in between. If you want a better handle on the stuff I'm writing or if you just want to learn more in general, then I'd recommend giving yourself a lil crash course in Genchem and then delving into O chem a bit more extensively (protip : you need WAY less Genchem then you'd think to fully understand O chem. God I wish someone had told me this 5 years ago. If you search "Genchem for non majors", you'll probably learn enough that way.)

THAT SAID : here's a chaotic, not really in any order list of the books/youtube channels/etc that I've directly used/am using for this fic.

Books :

Caveman Chemistry, Kevin R Dunn - Alot of hands-on old timey historical chemistry lessons w detailed instructions on how to complete them.(YOU GET TO MAKE YOUR OWN ASPIRIN AND DRAIN CLEANER!) Delivered with a delightfully occult bend.

Back To basics,(Reader's Digest) - Survivalist homesteading bible. Not strictly chemistry but has alot of earthy hippy ways of generating energy( biofuels my beloved)

An Introduction to Fire Dynamics, Dougal Drysdale - Honestly this, and any other firefighting manuals are worth their weight in gold for figuring out how to not set yourself and your neighborhood on fire while playing with, well, fire. Trying to look this info up online is like playing russian roulette with intentional misinformation and your fbi guy.

(there's another book I have that's even more detailed but I can't find it right now or remember the name. I'll update this list when I can!)

Organic Chemistry, John Mcmurray 8th edition : generic but good college O chem textbook. You can search around and find free versions to download relatively easily.

The Organic Chem Lab Survival Manual, James W Zubrick - Also a very good way to learn how to not set yourself and your neighborhood on fire when playing with glassware/gases. Very in-depth instructions on setting up and using lab equipment without breaking anything or your brain. Has a fuckton of pictures. Author has a massive sense of humor and makes this heavy subject easy to read. Again, easy to download/find in archives

Unfortunately I do not have any recommendations for Genchem books. I mostly used free online courses like Khan Academy to learn what I did.(I would def. recommend them though)

Youtube Channels :

The Organic Chemistry Tutor : Dude puts everything from reaction mechanisms to retrosynth problems down in the simplest possible terms. Does not beat around the bush with euphemisms or stories, gets right to business. If you have trouble paying attention, or lose your mind when a professor goes off on a tangent, this man is your savior. I have crippling unmedicated ADHD and no STEM background whatesoever and this man still managed to teach me 2 separate ways to execute a Gabriel Synthesis

Nile Red : World's most inefficient and most powerful wizard. I am not entirely convinced he's human. Does shit like turning plastic gloves into drinkable grape soda or making sweeteners out of his own piss and somehow makes it explainable to trash goblins like me who only need the science for warlord pussy.

again, anon, holy shit thank you so much. Like you wouldn't believe the amount of damage you've just undone. i have been beating myself into a pulp and spiraling into anxiety about this fic an trying to do everything right and you've given me enough moxie to fuel me for at least the next 10 chapters. If you have any more questions or more specific questions, please do not hesitate to ask! I can't guarantee I can answer them, but damnit I'll try. Take care and happy learning you funky lil moonbean.

#Breaking Bread #megatron #megatron/reader #I know I don't need those tags but lord I'm relishing the thought of ppl stumbling upon this w 0 context #u know what I'ma go ahead and pin this thing. #Took me YEARS just to find out exactly WHAT I needed to learn and WHERE to learn it #if I can save someone from wasting all that time then that'll be nice

[thebibliosphere]

Despite knowing I have ADHD, I still routinely worry that I’m somehow a villainous mastermind who tricked a professional into giving me a diagnosis in order to get away with being lazy (Trauma recovery is a non-linear bitch.) or whatever the fuck.

And then nights like tonight happen where I’ll be reading a book on my phone, find a word I’m not familiar with, use the built in feature to look it up, think “ah, that’s cool”, decide I want to know the root origin of the word, look that up, “oh neat, I didn’t know those words were related,” find myself on a random Wikipedia page about a type of coral that eats jellyfish, springboard from there onto reading about the Great Barrier Reef only to find out there’s some scandal going on with marine ecologists, fall deeper down the rabbit hole into another Wikipedia article while researching said scandal, surface briefly on another article about pufferfish—pause and wonder, ‘what was I doing?’—something to do with roots… roots… roots—shit, I forgot to water the bonsai tree this morning, I’ll go do that now, oh, where’s the watering can? I’ll just find a jug in the kitchen, oh hey I left the butter out I should put that away, oh and the sugar needs to go in the pantry, oh hey, potato chips, did I eat dinner? I think I did but I’m hungry… wait, what was I doing?

Which is how you now find me stood in my kitchen at 2am eating potato chips and scrolling through my browser history trying to piece together the how and the why I got here and only just now remembering I was reading a book about ADHD, and ricocheted off from there like a pinball propelled by linguistic curiosity.

And I still haven’t watered the bonsai.

#adhd #adult adhd #actually adhd #good grief

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Mads, I've been Autistic about what breed(s) of dog the FireFam could be and even if you don't like interact w this post I just would like to make you laugh- I may have to post multiples b/c there's A Lot. Ok, so, Bobby is a yellow lab a la Shadow from Homeward Bound and I will die on that hill. Athena is, obv, a Dobie- she's stunning, but a softy for her family but she also makes smiling look like a threat. (1/?)

Thank you for your patience dear I was rushing to finish the F&F AU and was also rather busy this weekend in general. I'm including your other three asks here as screenshots and this all is going to get a bit long so I'm putting everything below a cut to spare people's dashes!

FIRST OF ALL, HOW DARE YOU. HOW FUCKING DARE YOU.

SHADOW FROM HOMEWARD BOUND!?

I'M GOING TO DROWN IN MY OWN TEARS.

WHEN THE KID IS LIKE OH MAYBE HE WAS TOO OLD AND THEN SHADOW APPEARS BECAUSE HE'S GOING TO COME HOME TO HIS BOY NO MATTER WHAT!!!! G O D

I NEED TO BE SEDATED!!!!

Ahem.

STICK A LITTLE CROWN ON HER AND CALL HER ATHENA!

I babysat for a family that had a Doberman and he was truly a sweetheart. So protective of me and would stay glued to my side while I was there. "A softie for her family but makes smiling look like a threat" is soooooo Athena.

oh my GOD I'm DYING

Look at this baby. Pure fucking ADHD right here. *pats puppy* This guy can fit SO much anxiety and innate need to be of use in him!

I'M FUCKING HOWLING OVER EDDIE. LOOK YOU'RE NOT... YOU'RE NOT WRONG ABOUT THE CORGI COMMENT. THERE ARE TEARS IN MY EYES. BUT.

This is still Eddie in my opinion.

Someone send that bit about Chim to Kenneth Choi I think he'd find it hysterical.

BEHOLD. CHIMNEY HAN. Look at those EARS.

I also personally could see Chim as a greyhound or a whippet.

Chim's just got this fastness about him that makes me think of that kind of dog. Is this me remembering how he literally just SPRINTED away from Albert while playing basketball because he panicked about lying? Maybe. You can't prove anything.

I had to remind myself what a Chow Chow is and OHMYGOD IT'S SO FLUFFY???

However I always saw Hen as a Great Pyrenees.

These things will fuck you UP. They're flock dogs but not in the Border Collie sense. They don't herd. They kill the predators that try to go after the flock. They will chase down the wolves and destroy them. And they are super super SUPER protective of and gentle with kids. They ADORE kids. So that's my two cents there!

Ohmygod Maddie is SUCH a Border Collie.

INCH resting that you say Standard Poodle for Karen...

Poodles are actually what my mom grew up with and she's always talked about how smart and wonderful they are, she's owned three in her lifetime and adores them. I know they kinda have this stereotype of being snooty but I think they're great and they ARE so fucking smart holy shit. They're smarter than some humans I've met.

However. Chris.

I'm gonna have to fight you (lovingly) on this one, Nonny.

I will say that when I googled this dog I laughed so fucking hard my ribs hurt. I CRIED.

They are very cute as puppies!

However. I must counter-argue and say that Christopher is...

AN ENGLISH CREAM DACHSHUND

*sobbing* look at how CUTE it is!!!!!

*continues sobbing over the cute*

Anyway thus concludes the nonny's opinions, and mine! I had a good laugh over this series of asks, thank you nonny. I hope you had a good weekend.

#mads answers things #911 abc #firefam

[chericherilvr]

I bring all the drama - M.L.A

Pairing: Marcus Lopez x fem!Reader

Summary: Being in a secret relationship with Marcus was easy, I mean it still is even after I see Maria flirting with him. After all, I thrive for drama

Reader specifics: Said to have hair, reads romance, fem reader cause they call themselves a cool girl, hinted and pretty much told neurodivergent reader (with autistic and adhd in mind)

Warning: this is so fluff I wanna cry, my humor is broken, probably ooc (like all of them), reader talks to themselves, not proof read like at all

2.1k words hehe

a/n: this is for my pookie @lucifertoxics and my pookie only, if you aren't my pookie you can keep reading it who am I to stop you tbh xx-

He grabbed her hands, a tight embrace resembling those of sweet love stories. "I love you," he whispered melting inside her eyes. "I love you," she replied whising to whoever was listening for this moment to never end.

"When are you going to finally find a boyfriend and stop reading those books?" It's in times like this I thank that the school I'm in. He looks so killable, maybe could use him to ace Mr. Denke's class. I nod to myself as I stare at Billy my eyes narrowing, (i) Why do the school rules imply you can't kill any other student? I let myself roll my eyes, he's a lucky bastard. "How about you find yourself one and let me read in peace? Please and thank you" I smile at him turning back to my book. The chair creeks as he sits pointing out just how much care they added into the library. "I mean it," Billy whispers leaning on the table, "I'm not calling you a lonely loser, but that's exactly what I'm calling you" Would I be too mean if I laugh at him? I shrug and let myself snort at his suggestion, Billy grabs my book out of my hands and throws it far on the table, out of my reach. Can't a girl just enjoy their free time for once? I turn to look at him. "Okay, I'm listening" He grins at my words choosing to ignore the annoyed tone that they came out with.

"Just don't want you throwing away your romantic life cause you prefer spending it with people who don't exist" I smirk, if he only knew, my heart beats quick, I try to ignore the burning feeling, we said to keep it secret "They are real" I chuckle at his stare, snickering trying to not burst out laughing I keep talking "they are real to mee" I slap my hand to my mouth if I'm going to laugh at least I will try to not be so loud for the library. "You're helpless" I follow Billy with my eyes trying to calm down from the big laugh, my tingles hurting from laughing too much. "Oh man if he only knew" I wipe a tear shaking my head, and standing up from my chair. Man, I really needed a good laugh. Look around the room, look around the room. I shift around for a bit trying to not act eager, and as a cartoon movie I slowly walk out the library, yes I am skipping so what?

Truth be told, Billy was far from the truth. Don't get me wrong, I love my fictional boyfriends, but I would never choose them over my fluffy ball of chaos and depression, Marcus, my boyfriend. I giggle when I think of him quickly wiping a face in front of my face to turn my expression into a more neutral one. Cool girl y/n, cool girl. Omg I could maybe start a band and get a bike? That's pretty cool girl style, right? I usually tend to get lost in my own thoughts, and I wonder how people saw me, I mean I was litterally just skipping down the hall my eyes unfocoused and looking around the walls, incohearent mumbles bouncing around me. Oh fuck I must look crazy to them. I shrug, eh who cares.

I'm not aware of how long it took me to reach the spot, our spot. Sure it was a big rock laying around but seeing it makes my stomach jumping with butterflies. I would totally twirl my hair and kick my feet with a giggle if it wasn't for what I saw. "What the actual fuck" I blink a couple times, Marcus sitting on our spot with a smiling Maria standing next to him. I mean, it's a public space, it's not like they're together locked up in a room, but why was she raising her hand to brush his hair back. Girl I get it, but his hair wasn't even messed up, why would someone even? Oh. Everything stops, and by everything I mean me, who was still aproaching them. Oh fuck she's flirting with him. I would tell you everything I thought in that moment, but I would be lying if I didn't say my brain was racing so fast not even I caught most of it. Yet I can explain how my body tenses, fingers tapping each other, the sun that suddenly looked brighter, the wind on the grass, the birds chirping, it's too much, their breaths, oh wait no, my breath, the one I can't control right now. I force myself to look at him, and I'm met with silence.

A peaceful silence that wraps around my body massaging the tension out of it. A comfort silence that fills my heart back to life. I've never been so happy to see my boyfriend's face filled with disgust. My boyfriend. As if a button was pressed my human body reacts again, walking back towards them. Towards our spot. It takes all strength within me to not laugh when Marcus pushes Maria's hand when she tries to touch him again. "Hi" They turn to look at my smiling face, and I'm sure I must have also pressed a button in Marcus cause he looks like he's about to call me his saviour. I'll tease him for that later, I could get some extra cuddles. Do I want to be mean? I mean Maria is kind of my friend as well, and my relationship with Marcus has been kept secret since it started. But a bit of teasing can't hurt, can it?

I savour every second every slow milimeter that I move my head to look at Maria as if it was sweet candy. My eyes widden in surprise and I make sure to pull the best smile I could muster. "Omg Maria you're here too!" I cheer giving her a tight hug giggling. "I swear I didn't even saw you, how's everything?" She frowns a bit looking side to side, but there's no camaras filming you, bestie, this is all real. I grab Marcus hand rubbing my thumb along it giving him a quick kiss on his cheek and a lovesick smile before turning back to look at Maria, head tilting as I wait for her answer. Fuck am I a bad person for enjoying her shocked face right now? I mean I'm training to kill people, but that's a whole different story, right? "What the fuck?" I chuckle when she speaks, covering my mouth with my hand. "Fuck did I messed up languages again? It's hard sometimes to realize" And I swear to God, I deserve to get a grammy for the self-pitying face I'm doing right now, I whine a bit selling the act, "I asked how you were doing, we haven't seen each other since thursday back in class" I smile at her leaning a bit closer to Marcus but not really whispering to ask him "That was in english, right?" He nods at me trying to hold his laugh when he sees my worried face, I sigh in relief looking back at Maria.

"I've been good," aaah, the sweet taste of confusion, "sorry it's just," she pauses again proably trying to understand what was going on, I'll give her that, she does look like gears are turning in her head to think right now, "it's just, are you two together?" Maria points at us, I gasp out in pure shock. Damn someone should just cast me already for a telenovela. "Oh my god!" I exclaim dropping Marcus' hand, "fuck babe I'm sorry I forgot we were keeping it a secret" I cover my face and groan, "fuck I'm sorry"

Cheeky bastard decides to finally speak, grabbing my hands out of my face and pulls me to stand in front of him. Fuck you Marcus Lopez Arguello, now I'm going to blush because of you. I melt when he cups my face into his hands and chuckles shifting his mouth into a smirk. "It's okay Love, it was bound to be known someday, it's not your fault" He ruffles my hair and if it weren't cause I'm in my acting era I would have already glared at him for daring to mess with my hairstyle. "I'll get-" Maria doesn't even finish her words before she darts out towards the main building, and I can't help but wonder if she felt bad for flirting with someone taken (which has never stopped her before) or if she was already telling everyone in school (which if I'm honest, it's what I think was happening) I giggle once she's out of sight turning back to face Marcus.

"Don't look at me like that" I allow myself to glare him this time, if I ignore my hear begging to kiss him I can act mad at him right? "Like what?" "With a big smile, it makes you look too cute, not fair, making me want to kiss you and everything. Also how dare you!" I exclaim, I migh not be an actress, but I am dramatic, I try to make my hair look good again, "I come in here, looking cute as fuck, my hair giving everything it needs to give, and you go and ruffle it that's not fair like-" This motherfucker kisses me.

I mean who am I to reject a kiss from him? Specially when he still tastes like today's desert we had for lunch, now I want icecream again. I love when he kisses me, but I hate how he knews how much it affects me. I surrender to him, not being able to pull away, not wanting to pull away. He quiets down my brain, so much it's concerning, each time after my brain powers on post-Marcus effect, I consider calling my psychiatrist to test him, this can't be human, he can't be real, am I going crazy or does he share the same effects my pills do. Don't tell this to my psychiatrist, but his effect works even better, it might not help me concentrate but I love the quiet silence that fills my brain. He pulls away, and I add it to another reason as to why I hate Marcus; He's so perfect, and I'm so desperate for him.

"You're hot when you're jealous" It takes me a couple seconds to react to his words, I was being for real, post-Marcus effect lingers for a bit before I regain control of myself. "I wouldn't call it jealousy" He rolls his eyes smiling, licking the corner of his mouth and I just know it's cause of his ego being filled up, he raises an eyebrow challenging me to explain myself. I start speaking a couple of times trying to defend myself, but pause before a single word can come out. I throw my head back groaning before dropping it on his shoulder, burrying myself in his shirt, relaxing at his sweet smell. "Okay, I was jealous, but I don't think it quite was that" He humms and I giggle when I feel his neck vibrate to produce the sound, "my head was turn between wanting to run away and cry, and the other part was begging me, screaming at me to just punch her away from you" I raise my head just as he rubs my waist up and down, shivering when it got a bit too low, curse the tickles. He looks into my eyes, but doesn't force mines to be on his, he knows I'm listening. "Love, you know how much I love you, right?" His voice is so soft it could put a baby to sleep, I adore it.

"You're amazing, you're sweet," he kisses my forhead, "you're funny" he kisses the tip of my nose, "you're a pure soul trapped in a hellhole" I chuckle even with my eyes slightly watering, he keeps going, "you're so loving, you're so lovable, you're so much that fuck if it wasn't cause I really, really, want to say something else, I could be here all day. You're enough" he kisses my lips, I taste my tears. "how did you know?" I plead him, he ruffles my hair. "that you were feeling insecure? Cause I'm the best boyfriend ever" I can't argue with that, I think to myself as he kisses me again after a soft laugh.

He grabs my hands, a tight embrace resembling those of sweet love stories. "I love you," he whisps melting inside my eyes. "I love you," I reply whising to whoever was listening for this moment to never end.

"YOU FUCKING BITCH HOW DARE YOU NOT TELL ME-?!" Billy shouts.

#marcus lopez x reader #marcus lopez arguello #x reader #marcus x reader #marcus lopez fluff #he's so cute I wanna hug him #I need him bibically