for @intotheelliwoods😌

Congrats on the 4k!

They are gonna have a beach day and is gonna be fun and incident-free, yes sir

Completely incident-free

I have more beach day ideas stored in my brain but they are gonna have to wait, have their matching outfits meanwhile

Writing Update/Art Update 5/9/2023

Many things happened last week. Not very many of them were drawing. I'll get back to that.

I have finally started posting the big (it's not really big. Medium-big. It just felt big) fanfic that I have working on for most of the year. You can start here if you want to read it, Chapters 1-3 are currently available.

I finished the smut. I had mostly finished it by Friday, but then we had a belated-because-we-were-waiting-for-spring-weather backyard birthday party for my daughter this past weekend, so I had to spend a solid 48 hours in the paralyzing deathgrip of anxiety at the prospect of socializing with people I don't know (the parents of some of my daughter's classmates), so I didn't get much of anything else done, although I did clean my house and buy a bunch of hot dogs.

I only got one doodle done this week, which took me three days, spread out over the anxiety deathgrip, but I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. I really would like to start on a more serious project this week, but I may get back to them, we'll see how it goes. I do want to thank everyone who sent in prompts, and I'm sorry I haven't gotten to more of them. Turns out I'm real bad at doing quick, fast-turnaround doodles! Is anyone surprised??

After that, like, I said, I finished up the porno. I was hoping to post it yesterday, but it was pretty late at night by the time I finished my editing sweep. Today was a go places posting day and I didn't really want to post two different fanfics in one day, plus I had made kind of a lot of edits, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to let it sit a day and then do another sweep before posting. In other words, tomorrow, probably.

This morning, I re-read what I've gotten written so far of Ductwork, which is the working title of the next story in the Heart is a Muscle. It's 7707 words at the moment, and I get hot mad every time I read it because I want there to be more of it, and unfortunately, there is only one way to make that happen. But it's gonna!! I keep telling myself that it was really worthwhile to have taken the time to write go places first, because Ductwork is largely about Rukia and Renji finally digging down into a lot of festering insecurities from that time in their afterlives. I have a couple different approaches to writing these days, and I'm gonna try to do the thing that ended up working for go places, which is 1) try to write something every day, 2) chronological schmonological, write whatever I can possibily come up with, I'll just cram it all together at the end, this was very fun and easy last time and definitely did not take six drafts and a color-coded spreadsheet. Based on past experience, I do not think I am going to be able to power through to completion, so my goal is to add at least 20k words to the thing before I flame out in a blaze of beautiful depression and spend the rest of the summer on something insane, like bringing back the Soul Society Tattoo Artist AU. My overall prediction is that it will be around 60k, but I'm not discounting the possibility that it could be another 100k-er. (it better not go over 120k tho, I will die for real)

Anyway, that was my week! Whew!

I keep finishing art faster than my queue posts

[1/2] Heeey Jess. You sometimes write about having ADHD (and autism if I'm correct) and I just, idk, need to tell smb else bc I'm having emotions. I'm a psych student so actually going to psychologist was difficult. But I struggle so much. I've come to really good guy, specialising in what I suspect is wrong and so far he is v understanding, I like his approach. We started assessment for ADHD.

[2/2] I’m going to have further test tomorrow, done by other psych bc mine simply doesn’t have it but nvm. So basically, I’m conflicted about the whole thing bc on one hand, maybe it’s nothing and I’m freaking out?? But then on the other, hey, this IS a problem, been my whole life, it impacts my daily life. If I’m not prying (you don’t have to answer if it’s too much, I understand), idk, how did you life change after a diagnosis? Better, different? Any tips? In general? Ta for listening!

Hey my friend! I know this feeling very well. Honestly, I went through the five stages of grief with my diagnosis, as weird as that sounds. Definitely took me a few months to hit acceptance.

First I felt denial- why am I doing this? I probably don’t have ADHD at all. I’m just lazy/ stupid/ not trying hard enough and I want to be special. I’m wasting everyone’s time. I’ve misled everyone.

Then: anger. What the fuck??? Why do I have ADHD? This is bullshit! Why can’t I be a normal person? What do you mean this is a lifelong thing? HOW DID THEY MISS THIS FOR 21 YEARS HOLY SHIT MY LIFE WOULD BE SO DIFFERENT IF THEY’D DIAGNOSED ME AT 8!!!

Then: depression. This sucks. This is my life. I can never be normal. I’m always going to struggle. I’m always going to be Odd. This is so unfair.

I had a bit of bargaining- a bit of ‘would I rather have depression or ADHD? would I rather have ADHD or anorexia? would I-’

Then: acceptance. I have ADHD. That is part of who I am, though it is not all I am. I know that my problems are real, and not just a character flaw. I don’t hate myself as much when things go wrong. This isn’t just me messing up, and I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Positives:

‘ADHD’ is a useful shorthand to communicate a lot of things I struggle with. It’s nice to be in communities of people with ADHD and find things to bond over. The sense of community and belonging has been really lovely (although online groups are hilarious- it’s just everyone writing 2000 word posts and nobody else reading them).

Stimulants have helped me a lot. My executive functioning is near zero without them. The side-effects aren’t super great, but I’ll take ‘em over sleeping until 4PM because I don’t have the motivation to get out of bed, or failing my driving test three times because my inattentive ass was genuinely dangerous on the roads. 

I was able to get some special arrangements at uni, which helped a lot. At my uni you can’t leave an exam in the first or last thirty minutes, which my ADHD hates. I never ever stayed that last thirty minutes, even when I needed it, because being trapped in a room with nothing to do for half an hour sounds like hell. After my diagnosis I got extra time and took the exam in a smaller room with fewer distractions. As I got an extra 45 minutes, that meant that last thirty minutes of doom and dread was 45 minutes later, and I could have as much time as I needed without facing entrapment. 

You learn workarounds. Imagine that you were lactose intolerant and never knew. People might be like ‘oh man, stomach troubles? Eat probiotic yoghurt!’, and if you did that it would make things worse. Getting a diagnosis helps you know what helps and what doesn’t. For example, for ADHD, group revision sessions are a horrible terrible idea- in which case, work alone. You might find silence is actually distracting- in which case, you need a white noise app or similar. You might find that fidgeting or doodling actually makes you take in more of what’s being said, not less. You learn that the general one-size-fits-all advice might not fit you, but there’s a lot of advice that’s tailored for your condition. Yay!

Downsides:

More awareness of stigma. People tend to think ADHD is what doctors call hyperactive white boys- they have no idea it affects adults, and that it manifests in so many different ways. People joking about buying my meds. The annoyance of having to get and take a controlled substance. 

TIPS:

Find a community for people with ADHD, either online or IRL, and join it. I can’t stress this enough.

Check out Unfuck Your Habitat for a good guide on how to handle cleaning when both you and your house are an unorganised mess.

Download a website blocker/ productivity app. I like Habitica for positive encouragement, and I have a website blocker that lets me go ‘nuclear’ and block certain sites for 1 hour with no way to undo it. Sometimes I block the whole internet at night so I’ll actually go the fuck to bed.

I have a waterproof bluetooth speaker that I love. Showering, cleaning and cooking are so much easier with music.

Give yourself time. You’re gonna feel a lot of things about this diagnosis. It’ll mellow out eventually.

Get used to educating people. Find some ways to explain why what you’re talking about isn’t what they think you’re talking about. They hear ‘I can’t concentrate unless something is interesting’ and compare it to their own experience of ‘sure, it’s hard when it’s boring, but you have to try’. I explain it instead as ‘you know the end of a long day of lectures when your brain is fried and you can’t handle any more information at all? I get like that after five minutes’. 

Do not listen to the opinions of people other than your doctor on your meds. ‘it’s legal meth!!11!’ eat my ass sandra

Message me any time, on or off anon. Best of luck with the rest of your life