#maybe next time will be better. if i can make myself go to another appointment | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

disabledunitypunk · 8 days

Text

So, I know this blog has been a lot less active as of late, at least from my part (mod Stars).

I'm gonna be honest; I've been incredibly sick. A combination of some kind of issue with gluten/wheat (may be celiac, or nonceliac gluten intolerance, or wheat allergy) with IBD, MCAS, lactose intolerance and sensory issues, had caught me in such a cycle of degranulation, anaphylaxis, intestinal issues, brain fog, chronic fatigue, and POTS and chronic pain flareups, that I was nonfunctional.

On top of that, anxiety over my partners SSI application (recently medically approved by the administrative law judge, that's a win! still waiting on nonmedical approval but it should hopefully just be a rubber stamp process at this point - knock on wood) has really screwed with my levels of executive dysfunction.

And trauma around medical neglect and abuse, plus being so sick, plus executive dysfunction, had led me to temporarily avoid seeking treatment at all. When I say that the very idea of trying to trick yet another doctor's ego into believing they came up with the idea to test me for the conditions I'm already reasonably certain I have, all while making sure I don't seem too smart, too unintelligent, too articulate, too reliant on google, too self-aware, use too many medical terms, and so on... I've not had the ability to advocate for myself anymore.

Luckily, a friend of mine that's all hellfire agreed to help advocate for me at some of my appointments going forward, so I'm going to be finding a new primary care doc and going forward (possibly seeing my old one a few more times if necessary, just to get re-referrals and maybe get a referral to a non-Medicaid allergist that actually knows what MCAS is) with pursuing diagnoses and treatment again.

Until then, however, I'm pretty much limited to about three foods - plain white or wild rice, "zoup" (a zucchini broth with chunks of carrots, daikon, celery, and wild rice), and raisins. I can drink water and cranberry juice. Between my sensory issues and that tiny list, I've been consistently significantly hungry for a week. I'm struggling to sleep and can't get more than four hours of restless sleep in a night the past few nights. I'm menstruating for the first time in five years for G-d knows why. I feel better and less reactive, especially after an ER visit for some IM decadron, but I am constantly exhausted.

Why do I bring all this up?

This is my daily life. I have near zero quality of life because of the ableism of doctors and failures of the medical system. I'm barely keeping myself alive every day, really only with the help of a lot of caretaking from my partner. I haven't been able to get to my doctor to get approved for that friend willing to advocate for me to be paid for basic caretaking duties by Medicaid. I went out on Saturday for the first time in over a month, and I'll be recovering from that for the next week and a half.

There is not a single minute of my life that isn't profoundly affected by my disabilities. Stress causes a cascading reaction through my MCAS, POTS, ME/CFS. Understimulation causes intense stress and even pain. Listening to music while doing nothing, watching videos, and similar "low energy" activities drain so much energy that they trigger my chronic fatigue, and sometimes cause a lesser reverse cascading reaction.

I can't take an ADHD med to help with the symptoms more disabling than the ones threatening literal anaphylaxis and organ failure because I can't get them compounded without an official MCAS diagnosis, and I'd also need a beta blocker compounded as well (which are are often mast cell triggers) for my POTS because the only ADHD meds that work on me are amphetamines.

I can't take vitamin D or B12 despite being incredibly critically low for the same reasons. I've barely found some OTC benadryl and aleve that I halfway tolerate. I might have a UTI and if I do I'm gonna have to convince doctors 20 years behind the medical literature that IM antibiotics are considered safe and effective and are a safer alternative to oral meds for me, if still risking a minor reaction.

On good days, I can make it between the bed and couch a couple times a day, and between the couch and the toilet. On bad days, I have a chamber pot setup in the bedroom because I can't afford diapers. I'm sure my vitamin D deficiency is not helped by never leaving an apartment that barely gets some sunlight two hours a day because it's in the shadow of the other side of the building.

I used to, on bad days, spend most of the day doing mindless tasks or on slightly less bad days, puzzle games, on my phone. Now, I'm lucky if I can do even that much most days. I AM too sick to play video games. 🥲 I can nap, I can sit with my eyes open, I can listen to music until it's too exhausting anymore.

I'm tired, and every day surviving is just a monumental effort. Again, the ableism of doctors and... actually, they're not failures if they're intentional; the abusive medical system, have not left a single minute of my life untouched.

Multiple times, when talking about online discourse, I've been accused of "wanting to be more disabled than I am", "being physically abled", being "crazy", "delusional", "on something", etc, etc, etc. All for daring to say that ideas like body-mind duality, exclusionism within disabled communities, and similar, are deeply harmful and affect far more than insular online discourse.

Doctors love to shove off chronically ill people into "psych cases". Have anxiety, autism, PTSD, schizophrenia, DID, depression, etc, etc on your chart? Yeah, you're never getting that physical diagnosis. This is what perpetuating and encouraging ideas like "all disabilities are physical OR mental", "people with abc type of disability have privilege over people with xyz type of disability", and so on, DOES.

Sanism is used to perpetuate ableism. Ableism is used to perpetuate sanism. Quite frankly, I'm not sure that neurotypical physically disabled people, non-mad neurodivergent physically disabled people, and physically abled neurodivergent/mad (all as self-identified categories) get just how deeply compounded ableism is when you exist at the intersection of physically disabled and neurodivergent (especially if mentally ill or mad). Or perhaps, the disconnect exists along a line of "profoundly disabled" vs "can access abled hegemony to a significant extent". Perhaps it's both. There is likely elements of how visible a disability is, how much its able to be masked, the type/level/spread of support needs, and so on. There's definitely elements of other marginalization; race, ethnicity, fatness, queerness, and so on.

And then there's the subcategories. Cognitively disabled. Traumatized. Chronically ill. Visually impaired/blind. Deaf/hard of hearing. Intellectual disability. Mobility disabilities. Fluctuating vs static disabilities, support needs, masking, and so on.

Sometimes I wonder, would the people who think I'm just an abled faker who doesn't belong for not being able to seperate my neurodivergence from my physical disabilities, my neurological organs from my body, my inabilities from my inabilities, would they find I'm the same as them when they spend a day in my life? Would they find it worse? Would they find it unbearable in a completely different way from their own struggles? Would they maybe even find that while it's not quite as hard as their own struggles in some cases, that it's still wildly hard and the two are far closer to each other on the scale than they think? Would they understand that we are both in the midst of an active, eugenicist genocide, and that we're 50-49 bullet holes staring down the barrel of a loaded gun that is held by our oppressors?

Even now, I'm thinking about how this post might be inaccessible. Is it readable for screen readers? Will the length be too much for way too many people? Is it understandable for people with intelligence and cognitive disabilities? How do I fix those things if it's not. What am I missing? What am I missing? What am I missing?

I'm exhausted, I'm scared, and I'm barely holding on. I'm safe, mental health wise, to be clear, I'm just convinced that the only reason that I'm not in significant danger from my physical chronic illnesses right now is because I've always had a body that was stubborn as all hell and twice as resilient. I'm not dying, not because the illnesses aren't trying, but because my body will endure far beyond normal limits.

I've experienced slow acting anaphylactic reactions without anaphylactic shock about once a month for 1-2 years now, usually only going in after several days and nights of severe symptoms. Like I've mentioned, several of my vitamin levels are so low as to make organ failure a constant threat. None of my illnesses are "terminal" per se, but that doesn't mean they can't be deadly. And more to the point, it doesn't mean they can't destroy me, that they haven't utterly destroyed my quality of life, without killing me.

I mean, I started this blog as an attempt at fostering solidarity. We CANNOT be quibbling over who really "belongs" in various disability spaces, who gets to reclaim what words or whatever, when so many of us are dealing with this shit.

For the area with the lowest cost of living in the country, SSI should be 5 times what it is now. For the highest, up to 20 times. People on disability benefits lose some or all of their payments, insurance, and so on, if they get married, even to another person on benefits. I've never met a disabled person without more doctor horror stories than diagnoses, and we all know diagnoses like to come in clusters. We are being abused, neglected, and killed.

I cannot stress how much, not that this intracommunity discourse "doesn't matter", but that it does at a deeply harmful level. It's just perpetuation of the abuse we face at a lateral level. We're mimicking the government and doctors and general abled society and getting into petty but deeply dangerous inane arguments that are just us carrying out the only way we've been taught to treat disabled people.

Being a disabled activist and advocate means questioning everything you know about ableism. It means prioritizing first and foremost disabled people. And honestly, speaking as someone whose platform here is dedicated to that, that's really fucking hard. It means believing people about their experiences with disability and oppression in a world that teaches us that the vast majority of disabled people are lying privileged fakers.

It means not believing that people know more about what people with a disability they DON'T have face because of their own disabilities. A little confusing, but essentially someone with disability A without disability B who faces oppression X, can't say that someone with disability B DOESN'T face oppression X, just because they face it. It means not calling the very real harm someone has experienced "misdirected", or making their suffering about you or your subcommunity, just because you've experienced the same or similar harm.

It means unlearning reactivity as a group of extremely traumatized people. It means learning to meet people where they're at, and assume "can't" rather than "won't". It means accepting that sometimes not only will someone's disabilities cause conflicting access needs with your own, but that sometimes people's disabilities can actively cause them to do harm, and that they still deserve rights, community, and support if they do. It also means recognizing that the harm that a disability may cause someone to do is going to look VASTLY different than abled expectations of "harmful" disabilities. It means, even and especially when this happens, recentering the perspective not around how the disability affects other people, but around how it affects the person with the disability.

It's all of this and so much more. It's a lot of effort from people with not a lot to give. It's fighting an upstairs battle with no ramp, so to speak.

And I guess I just... I'm at a loss on how to keep that up. Is just focusing on getting myself well enough to participate again, putting my own mask on first, enough? When there is not a single moment of my life untouched by the extremely deep and extremely systemic harm of ableism, is it enough to try and access the care continually gatekept from me at an individual level? Can I even do so, against such intensive pressure?

How do I live this life, and also go on untangles the narratives of "disabling neurodivergence isn't really a real disability and neurodivergent people face almost no real ableism" and "physical conditions are obvious and so get all the care and face no real ableism". How do I fight the concurrent violences of hypervisibility and erasure within the community that only serve to strengthen abled people bludgeoning us with them?

How do I focus on things like organizing, community building, activism, advocacy, dismantling the system, dismantling our reliance on it, and so much more, when I can't even get out of bed?

All I can do is write about it, right now. Sometimes I feel like that's all I've ever been able to do. Everyone I've ever known has acted like some day my "pen" will be a tool of liberation, but I'm at a loss for how. I'm just some horribly sick mad cripple on a dying microblogging platform on the internet. I don't know - not if I'm enough, but if anything ever can be.

And I don't mean to sound hopeless. I know that change can happen. I know that it is, in tiny and sometimes larger ways, every day.

This is kind of a self-centered post, in the most neutral way. This is just my perspective. This is about me, and how I'm so very disabled, and how people assume I'm not (and how wild that is, considering), and how ableism affects me so deeply, and how I don't know how to face it or fight it...

I can only hope that maybe my word resonating with people means something. That maybe, as much as we never want each other to experience what we have to, that it's also a comfort to know we don't experience it alone. That maybe this will serve as a reminder that it's okay to be scared, to feel lost, even hopeless, to struggle; to not know how to fight or where to turn. That maybe this will reach someone who CAN do something, and maybe it'll reach the people who need to NOT do anything other than take care of themselves, and that maybe it will help both of them.

Maybe that's too grandiose, I don't know. I hardly know what my point is here, other than: this is me, crippled and crazy as all hell. This is the violence I face. This is why I started this blog, because we need to stop hearing "you're a lying abled privileged faker trying to take advantage of and take resources from real disabled people who really need it" from abled people, and saying it word for word to each other. Because what abled people mean by "real disabled people" is just a theoretical disabled person. A perfect victim. They don't mean any real disabled person, especially not those who can advocate for themselves. They mean they think every single one of us doesn't need or deserve accommodations, treatment, respect, humanity, or even life.

That's the point, really. We're all we've got. We've gotta fight for each other, not fight each other. And G-d, I know how hypocritical that sounds coming from my ragey, rabid ass. I just... that's all I know to focus on right now. Not necessarily all coming together and holding hands and singing a song about unity, but just... not being ableist to each other. Tolerating each other even if we can't stand each other. Presenting a united, unbroken front to ableist society, and pushing until they don't have any power over us anymore. Doing the work of activism, which is often neither easy nor feel-good.

That's what I'm trying to do here, at least. I try to get a little better at it every day. I try to listen a little more. I try to keep up hope when my body and mind are crashing down around me.

I don't have a mic-drop conclusion to add to this, so just: I'm opening the floor. Anyone who has anything to add, feel free to do so. What you have to say is valuable.

#ableism #sanism #unitypunk #cripplepunk #madpunk #neuropunk

22 notes · View notes

absurdthirst · 1 year

Text

Surprise!

Eight - Him

Letter 8 of the Surprise! Writing Game

Please check Surprise! masterlist for more information

Words: 602

Warnings: Fluff, suggestive mentions, hints of spiciness

Corazón,

I won’t go AWOL, the promise of being able to hold you is far too great to give up for a cold cell in Leavenworth. There wouldn’t be a pretty girl wearing my shirt and carrying my baby sleeping next to me.

I won’t lie, I cried when I saw the ultrasound. Thank God she has her mother’s nose. Mia will be as pretty as her mama, I just know it. And then I’m going to have to get out my shotgun. It’s strange to think about those kinds of things, that I’m going to be a father but it’s amazing.

Your pictures. God, Bubbles, you know don’t what they do to me. Let me just say that you should have no insecurities where your changing body is concerned. You are beautiful, even more so than that night. I proudly showed off the one with your bump showing (but not the one in my t-shirt, that’s for my eyes only 😉 ) and the guys are saying that they can’t wait to see what the belly looks like when we get home.

I hope you don’t mind, but the guys have kind of adopted the idea of having a niece, our little Mia won’t be lacking for love or support. Although I feel like we will have to make sure that Ben doesn’t sneak her extra candy when she is older.

I am glad Mama brought you the shirts and that she is going with you to the appointments. I wish I could be there. I would hold your hand and cry with you.

This is real, corazón. I know that it has started crazy and that some would say that we are moving too fast but I don’t care. Some days the idea of you and Bean safe at home are what gets me out of the rack and eager to tackle another day. I think I might be in love with you too. Yes, I held up the letter to the sun. You can’t tease a man like that.

We’ve had some issues lately, tough days and I re-read your letters everyday and smile. When I get home, I want to kiss you and if you haven’t had our daughter yet, take you out for a real date. Foot and backrub included. Maybe I should look into one of those spa packages for you? Do you go get your toes done like Will’s fiancée?

I know that there are a lot of things for us to learn about one another, but I think it will be fun. Send me a list of questions you have and I’ll answer them. Although, now that I think about it, I’m sure my mama has probably told you every embarrassing story she can about me when I was growing up. Please, please tell me she didn’t pull out the photo albums with the bathtub pictures. (I was two, okay?)

There are also a couple of serious things that I want to talk to you about when I get home as well. Nothing bad, I promise. I just want to make sure Bean gets added to my dependents list so she can get Tri-Care and BAH. (You can also be added on, but we’ll talk about that in person.)

Okay, I better stop talking before I scare you away or make an ass of myself. Just know that i am thinking about you and Bean everyday and I am counting down the days until I get to see you again.

Love, Frankie.

P.S. I’m not crossing it out again this time. I love you, Bubbles.

Thank you @sturkillerbase for the tag!

Tagging @quica-quica-quica for the next part!

Tag list: @boliv-jenta @scorpio-marionette @misspearly1 @supernaturalgirl20 @prolix-yuy @toomanystoriessolittletime @kybitchcrystal @meandorla @quica-quica-quica @absurdthirst @ilovemanypeople @thegreenkid @lowlights @littlemisspascal @ezrasbirdie @pedropascalito @mandoblowmybackout

Permanent tag list: @harriedandharassed

#surprise! writing game #frankie morales #triple frontier #frankie catfish morales x reader #frankie morales fanfiction #frankie morales x reader

109 notes · View notes

soullikethesea · 2 months

Text

I think I'm in some kind of reenactment with T.

The thing that keeps occurring is that I get disappointed by something she neglects to do & then I feel super upset and want to lash out and can barely contain it (and IF I express it, it comes out as "never mind my question"). I sort of angrily retreat, because the insecurity of waiting totally trips me up.

The things in the last few sessions: she neglected to tell me that she'll have to cancel some of our appointments (and I planned around them to have my trip), so now we will have to have a sudden long break. Found out about this at the very end of the session, got very upset when I got home. Thankfully there was another session before the long break, arguably that makes it better. She also said she wasn't sure about one date and that maybe we could see each other next week.

I found it super hard to contain how sad and out of control I felt about this (it just triggered old stuff about my dad). So I tried arranging that other session, it was not possible. Nor was that date she wasn't sure about earlier. I felt more confused and hurt about the false hope. Emailed about how triggered I was, T replied with an email she meant to send weeks ago. The email from weeks ago actually met some needs, because it gave us things to work on.

Which involved writing confrontational letters for my parents. I did that. Got very triggered, had a period of very little sleep. Slowly got more functional again. I think the letters are a good starting point to work more on this topic. So I was hoping we could discuss them in that one session before the break.

But then it turned out that T had missed that email and hadn't read them. Since it was basically the most important topic for me, she asked if she could read during the session. So she read one of them while I was... idk, sitting there. And then she got all misty-eyed. We couldn't really get into what it meant to me, because I was super numb and disconnected and she was basically crying about how bad it all had been. Since we were quite disconnected from each other, I'm not sure if it was helpful. It just felt like "yeah, OK, now you realize how bad it was, but it doesn't change anything. I already went through it. It already happened and that is when I was alone. I've already dealt with it, alone. I've already tried telling you about this for years and I'm honestly surprised my words apparently didn't make an impact until now."

But I could tell that T was really trying and that also made me feel more mild. She did say some helpful things about the extent of the neglect and what effects it has on me. Time ran out and there was still the letter for my mother left. She asked if there was something she could do for me and said that I can email her and ask for replies. She also said she will still read the other letter and send me a reply. I thanked her and said that would be great, because right now we're still in that topic and in a month both of us will probably not remember. Given her work schedule, I expected her to take care of it that day or maybe the next.

Still no reply, and I'm getting quite triggered again. Why did she say she was going to do it? She didn't have to say that, you know. It would've given me more peace of mind not to be "waiting" like this. The thing is, I feel very ashamed of that letter. So now I wish I'd never sent it and never asked her to read it, nor agreed that she would.

Another reenactment of the same sort of situation. At least I'm realizing that now. So I think the best I can do is to let it go. I'm not sure how to do that, but I will try my best. She's only human, she's probably getting sucked into the reenactment same as me. I'm going to let it go and I'm going to count on myself. Just like I know how to do. I was trained for this, Lucas says. And a break is not the end of the world. I will let things flow as they go, and not try to force having support. It's not there in the way I wish it could be, and it's not there in words matching actions, but there is support out there in the world. I'm in a relatively good position now in my daily life and perhaps that fact in itself can already serve as support.

#plus I also feel supported by you guys

10 notes · View notes

lovesosweeet · 6 months

Text

better left unsaid // cth

chapter seventeen

in which orion has leukemia, and calum doesn’t know.

calum hood x fem!oc

read other chapters

august 14, 2018 los angeles, california orion

Since our tense conversation — I can’t call it a fight, nor do I want to — Calum has texted me at least once every hour that he’s awake. It’s refreshing. He’s a much better partner and boyfriend than any of my previous relationships in all regards, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s actually following up on what he says.

My ex that I’d dated from the start of freshman year through a few months before I left for Spain was horrible about texting me. He’d always forget to text me good night, then didn’t bother to reply to my good mornings. We wouldn’t start texting until I’d text him again a few hours later. I would time that message by posting a Snapchat story and then waiting to see if he’d viewed it. It was toxic, and he never followed up on his promises that things would get better and he’d text me more.

It had always felt silly to get so hung up on something so seemingly small, but it kept being a recurring problem. He always promised that he would text me more and show me just how important I was, but the proof never showed up.

With Calum, the moment he knows I have a problem with something, he works to fix it. This is another instance of it. While it may only be two days after he promised he’d keep in better contact with me, he has upheld his promise impeccably.

Just more reasons to love him, and more reason to be racked with guilt from keeping a massive, literally life or death, secret from him.

Today is round three of chemotherapy, and since we both are going to the same place, Macy and I are going together. Her mom will drop us off and Emelia will pick us up. I’ve packed my fluffy blanket again, along with Uno and a phone charger. It’s yet again another day where I wear one of Calum’s left-behind sweatshirts with a pair of shorts that are hidden underneath the oversized top. With my worn-out but very comfortable Birkenstocks, I’m wearing fuzzy socks.

Macy knocks on my door to let me know she’s here, and I give Duke a peanut butter filled Kong to keep him busy while I’m gone. I swing open the door and find her standing there, wearing an outfit almost identical to mine, except her sweatshirt is likely her own, with UCSD in large, embroidered block letters across the chest.

“Good morning,” I tell her. I close the door behind myself and lock it.

“Damn, I really thought I might get an Orion latte this morning,” she pouts.

“Oh, shit, I can go back in and make you one? It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Macy shakes her head. “No, I’m fine. Maybe next time, though?”

I nod and we start walking toward the elevator. “Yeah, next time. How are you feeling today?”

Macy has just this week and next week left on this treatment cycle. Her team is pretty confident that this final round should hopefully send her back into remission and she can resume her coursework in the spring. After years of going in and out of treatment, Macy doesn’t want to get her hopes up, so she’s currently still planning on starting school again in the fall next year. That said, she’s felt pretty miserable for the past few weeks.

Her cancer — Hodgkin’s lymphoma — is currently just in stage one, caught early because she has regular visits to her oncologist over the years to monitor. While my treatment is supposed to be six weeks of chemo appointments, hers is only three weeks, but she has them twice a week.

“Like death, but, just means it’s working,” she says, pressing the button for the lobby. “You?”

“Same.”

We ride down to the lobby in silence, listening to the hum of the machinery that makes it move. There’s no elevator music, which I’m grateful for since I don’t know if I could listen to it every time I take the elevator. When the doors slide open, we find Ron behind the desk like normal, and he smiles when he sees us. I fight to smile back at him.

“Good morning!” He calls out.

Macy and I both raise a hand in a haphazard wave.

“Morning, Ron,” I manage to reply.

Macy’s mom is waiting for us in the car in the parking garage, and she’s on some kind of business call when we get in, so she doesn’t say anything to us as we buckle our seatbelts and she pulls out of the parking space. Macy and I are both just on our phones for the drive, since her mom’s call seems pretty important and I don’t want my voice to be echoing in the background.

I check my phone for the first time since I woke up and see that Ashton has texted me. It’s in the wee hours of the morning in Adelaide, which is where they should be now, so I’m going to guess that he’s out partying or just coming back to their hotel from it.

From: irwie will you be honest can you tell me how you’re really doing none of the bs where you pretend you’re fine i’m worried i can’t stop thinking about it i can’t sleep i know you and i know you’re pretending it’s all fine and you’re not miserable. please just give me a real update

After reading through, I decide he’s probably not drunk. I don’t think he is out either. I think he’s probably just laying in his bed and overthinking. Kay is probably sound asleep next to him. I triple check the time conversion, and it’s 3:42 am there. I wish that he was as blind to what I’m actually doing back in LA as Calum is.

To: irwie ash, please go to sleep i’ll be fine

Calum had texted me goodnight a few hours prior, too, complete with a selfie of him wearing a sweatshirt I bought him, but I wait to reply to him, since I don’t want the notification to wake him up. I’ll send a message in a few hours while Macy and I get our drips of poison.

Ashton replies almost immediately.

From: irwie orion, please it’s late, i just want to know the truth

To: irwie ash… it’s fine just go to sleep

From: irwie stop it. tell me the truth

To: irwie i’m not lying. it’s fine. it’s gonna be fine

From: irwie you keep saying that but i literally don’t believe you at all just give me an ounce of the truth please

To: irwie oh my god fine i’ve lost 10 pounds bc i’m so nauseous i can barely eat and my body feels like it’s covered in bruises but there are no bruises it just hurts and i’m so fucking tired there’s your update

There’s no activity from Ashton after I send that, and when I look up, we’re at the hospital. Macy’s mom is still on the phone, so we quietly open our doors. I get out of the car and I watch as her mom gives her arm a squeeze, and then Macy joins me. We walk inside and check in, and then we go our separate ways to get our vitals taken.

When we reconvene at the armchairs, Macy is waiting for me.

“My mom says she’s sorry she couldn’t talk in the car,” she mentions as I sit down.

Two employees come over with their carts to hook us up to the IVs. As usual, I close my eyes so I don’t have to watch it happen.

“No, it’s okay, I know she has work.”

I feel the coolness of the wipe on my arm, and I brace for the impact of the needle in my skin. With the pinch, I feel my phone vibrate on my lap.

“I told her you wouldn’t mind, but I just wanted you to know she did apologize.”

I nod, my eyes still shut. When I feel tape over the IV in my arm, I open my eyes again, giving the nurse who’d done it a smile. She tells us to let them know if we need anything before they disappear to tend to other patients.

“Tell her I said thank you for the ride,” I say. I pull my phone out again, seeing what the notification is. It’s Ashton, unsurprisingly.

From: irwie orion promise me you’ll ask for help if you really need it we can’t lose you

His third text is gut-wrenching enough to send me into an emotional spiral, but I do my best to hold myself together. I fight the urge to start crying in the middle of this room where I’m surrounded by people who are all fighting the same battle. It would feel like I’m belittling them. We’re all struggling through the same thing. Why would I be special enough to cry while everyone else is acting fine?

I take a deep breath before I reply.

To: irwie i’m fine. it’s fine.

From: irwie can you please stop lying

To: irwie everything remains as is until i can tell calum.

When he doesn’t reply instantly, I follow up again.

To: irwie please, please go to sleep.

From: irwie 👍

Now he’s mad at me, but hopefully he will at least go to sleep now.

Frustratedly, I lock my phone and push it into the kangaroo pocket on my sweatshirt.

“You good?” Macy asks from next to me.

I gulp, rubbing my eyes. I feel like crying, but this isn’t the time or place. “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s just Ashton.”

“What do you mean?”

Macy knows that Ashton is the only one on the tour who knows about my leukemia, so I know she understands why there may be a problem there. I guess I didn’t really give much context, so her question is valid.

“So it’s like 3:30 am there and he’s texting me saying he can’t sleep and I need to tell him how I’m really doing.”

An unusual smile paints itself across her face. “And that bothers you?”

Bothering me isn’t exactly how I’d describe it. “I just want him to live his life.”

“Orion,” she starts. “Just because you’re stifling your emotions about this whole thing doesn’t mean he can.”

I’m not stifling my emotions. I’ve cried almost every day since Calum left. I feel like I’m drowning in everything that’s going on and it’s practically the only thing that I can think about. My little detour to feeling sad that Calum wasn’t communicating with me as much as I wanted him to was brief, and most of the time I’m just thinking about my literal impending doom.

“I’m not stifling my emotions.”

I don’t meet her eyes, but I know that she rolls them.

“Just because I’m not talking about them doesn’t mean I don’t have them,” I add.

“Can I be honest?” Macy asks.

“I’d prefer you always be honest, so yes.”

“I feel like you’re still in denial about all of this.”

When I don’t have something articulated to say straight away, she adds more.

“I don’t know if it’s truly all set in, and I think a lot of that stems from you not telling Calum.”

She’s probably right. I don’t feel like I can let myself really think everything through, because I know that once I do, I’m one step closer to calling Calum and messing everything up. I’ve worked too hard to protect Calum from my reality. I can’t just throw it all away because I get depressed about my lack of potential future. Even when I’m just home and all alone, I don’t let myself feel sad about the cancer. I just focus on being sad about being alone.

My life is ending, at a faster rate than most other people’s, but right now, I just feel like someone going through a long distance relationship while having the flu. I’m sick and I’m lonely but I don’t feel like I have really processed just how sick I actually am.

read next chapter

a/n: day 2 of nanowrimo we are just over 5k words so far!!!!!!

#5sos #5 seconds of summer #michael clifford #fanfic #fanfiction #5sosfam #ashton irwin #calum hood #luke hemmings #5sos fanfic #calum hood fanfic #calum fluff #calum angst #imagine #calum x oc #original character

19 notes · View notes

poupeesdecirque · 7 months

Text

Personal Update & Doll Plans!

Maybe some important things to tell.

Glasses, Social Media & real life, a little bit of dolls

First of all: if you are reading this - thank you for being interested in what I have to say.

As I had updated not too long ago I got my next tattoo on the 23rd and it was a quite short lived decision as I had planned on doing it in February but somehow I felt the urge to do something for myself only.

It's healing well but let us come to something else...

Before I made the tattoo appointment I made an appointment to have my eyes checked. I have issues driving in the night and last month at work I had trouble to read a power point presentation.. as my last check was in 2005 I decided it was about time.

I got checked one week ago and the result is my eyes are almost perfect in regards of functionality themselves BUT I have Astigmatism, the lense in my right eye is the worse but the left isn't much better. Yep, my vision is crooked and it explains so SO much for me. Like the fact I was never able to draw straight lines even with rulers and such :') and the issues with driving at night, things are deformed for me, appear wider and broader.

Thursday I was able to pick up my very own first pair of ... glasses. I am adjusting to them now, I had car-driving glasses in before but those were plain window glass just to protect my sensitive eyes from the AC.

And it might be not a big change but right after the Connichi I had cut my hair even after having asymmetrical hair for years, it's three big changes for me, the hair, the tattoo and the glasses on top of work being absolute hell with too much going on.

I have to step back here and there in regards of hobbies and my decision is to step back from the social side, I will be using some of my social media less and less, especially when some last things are settled. I want to concentrate on the sides of my hobbies that bring me joy and not dig through dirt all the time in the little time that I have. I am actively trying to figure out how to use my main media like my tumblr blog here, you might have noticed I have started to write travel blogs and that's the route I want to go, to write down more, to share more of my thoughts, my impressions and all that.

I am reachable, I am here if you have questions, it maybe just will take a while until I reply.

I am handling a lot on top of my real life and art is a hobby, I can't juggle it all in a fair amount, i can't do cosplay, drawing, dolls and writing all at once. Writing is a priority for me same as drawing, I am aiming to do it several times a week.

I want to attend more conventions again and engage with the fandom outside of the internet, I feel like I have lost important connections and want to rebuild them, it's a progress for myself mainly.

Digging through my personal backlog of tasks is another can of worms. I just... took one bite too much too often.

But well, here I am wriggling my way through. Had a nice drawing and writing day today while I finally finished watching a series that came out in July and feel kinda proud I did it (you have no idea, the times I have actually WATCHED a show is now 6 times this year, a movie? Maybe two. it's sad I know but there is mainly just no time left or spoons for it.

In case you read this far and are in for doll related news:

I ordered the body for Bookman and am now waiting for three bodies, a full doll and a new head I just snatched last night! I hope to make the announcement for the head the next days as I made some art to go with it :)

Thank you for your attention <3

#personal update

10 notes · View notes

thetreetopinn · 5 months

Text

My ADD Medication Journey Begins

I got a physical back in early August this year. While I was there, I reminded my doctor "Hey, any chance you could maybe get me the contact details for that specialist you mentioned last year so I can get an evaluation to see if I'm ADHD or ASD?". He immediately remembered that I had asked about that last year and promised he would get me her card.

Well, it slipped is mind back then, and even though I called and emailed a few times, he just didn't seem to respond.

Oh hey, turns out HE has ADD and HE takes medication. Sometimes he just forgets because he deals with a lot of patients. It wasn't anything super hardcore pressing to me, so I just let it go after a while and decided to ask when I went in for my next physical.

When I brought it up this time, he stopped me mid-sentence, walked out of the room, and returned about two minutes later with the specialist's business card. He apologized for not getting it to me sooner, advised that I should call her as soon as I leave his office, try to schedule an appointment with her, and get an evaluation done. He said that if it turns out she thinks I am in fact ADD or ASD, that I should call his office just as soon as I get out with the diagnosis, and we would have a conversation about medication.

Well, we had a conversation about medication right then and there anyway, but it still was worth calling and talking about anyway.

I called the specialist and left a message--this was around 11am.

I got a call back from her receptionist about 30 minutes later--they have an opening that day! It's around 4 or so. I tell them "YES! I WOULD LIKE TO SCHEDULE TODAY IF THAT IS OKAY!"

They slot me in. It futz around that side of town because i live in a big city that is extremely car-centric (thank you good ole US of A... [sarcasm]) and show up at her office about 15 minutes early. I don't have anything better to do, so I show up that early. I also like being early to doctor appointments because you never know what the situation will be. They may have a patient cancel and you get seen earlier. It may be that the doctor is running behind so you have to wait anyway. You might have issues fighting traffic to get there (again, thanks... Uncle Sam). I just like being early for this kind of thing.

I end up waiting the full 15 minutes that I was early because the doctor was with another patient. When she's ready, she calls me back. I don't have to wait a silly amount of time, she's just ready to see me.

We have a conversation. She goes over her pre-written questionnaire. I answer the questions to the best of my ability. I try to be honest. I try to give as much accuracy as I can and confess my lack of answer when I don't have one but try to cobble something together to provide SOME kind of insight for the question.

About 15 minutes pass as we talk. She's very affable, friendly, funny, she actually laughs at my stupid dorky humor. She asks me what I do for a living, and what I've done in the past. I explain my last few jobs and how they have not gone well for me.

She looks me in the eye and says "those are all extremely detail oriented jobs... how are you able to do them?"

Half joking, half serious, I reply with "I'm not!"

The truth is, I find little hacks and tricks to try and keep myself on task, to minimize mistakes, maximize accuracy, try to maintain a calm demeanor... but that has always been a problem for me, especially when I'm under a heavy workload... or when I'm taking a hundred calls a day from people who are just looking for someone to scream at and make actionable threats against--despite the fact that I have no power over their case, I can only get them to the person who IS handling their case. I'm just a glorified receptionist in that specific role--a role I was fired from several years ago, and fuck did it knock the wind out of me.

She looks over her notes for a moment, then looks back at me and says "Yeah, I'd say you are DEFINITELY on the spectrum, and I think you might benefit from some medication. I think you should start on Adderall, low dose, see how it affects you. Have you talked to your PCP yet?"

(I had to have it explained to me to know what that means so I'm going to just go ahead and say for anyone else who might not know and is too afraid to as: PCP = Primary Care Physician... basically, the one doctor you see regularly, if you're lucky enough to be able to do so. I went YEARS without having a PCP because insurance is a fucking nightmare)

I explained to her what he had advised, that all I had to do was call him after I got out, explain that you confirmed I'm on the spectrum and that you think I should try Adderall, which is what he recommended too. We would discuss it, answer my questions and concerns, then he would put in a prescription at the pharmacy I had on file. I didn't need to go back to his office to do it. He would just forward it over.

This whole day kind of amazed me.

I had heard all manner of horror stories about how hard it is to get evaluated as an adult. Then how hard it was to get prescribed medication. THEN there's the fact that there is STILL an Adderall shortage going on. It's not as bad as it was, but it's still causing problems.

I call my doctor as soon as I'm out--he's already gone for the day but I leave a message explaining the situation. The specialist forwards confirmation of the diagnosis over to his office, it's all in order.

And then I wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. After two weeks, I try to call his office to try and catch him for a conversation. Have to leave a message. I do this every couple of weeks until about the end of September when HE calls ME back while I'm working from home and while I pace around my bedroom chatting with him about the situation, he tells me everything I want to know, what to expect, what to do if I have trouble getting medication, it's all groovy. He says he wants to have a follow-up with me--if I recall correctly it can be just over the phone, I don't need to go into the office I don't think. I'm sure I'll find out later--once I've been on the medication and have enough experience with it to see how it's affecting me, then we can adjust dosage or try something else, or maybe I'm good with the 20mg twice daily situation. He wants to follow-up and see.

He says he's going to forward the prescription over that day. And so he does.

It's a pharmacy that's in a grocery store. I've gotten one or two prescriptions filled there before. It's fine. Nothing to write home about. This grocery store I will not openly name, but it rhymes with Dom Crumb... those of you who live in the southeast United States probably already know exactly which store I'm talking about... and how it shares a name with a character from English folklore about a very tiny lad about the size of one's... well... only opposable digit on their hand.

The pharmacy does not call. I figure, okay, they just don't have any medication in stock. There's a shortage after all... all us millennials are eating it all up because holy fuck do we need some help just being able to function HAHAHAHA LATE STAGE CAPITALISM ISN'T PURPOSEFULLY OVERLY COMPLEX AND TRAUMATIZING AT ALL!!

So I wait about a week, then I try to call, but their automated system doesn't give me the option to speak to a pharmacist, a tech, a live person at all. It doesn't even let me leave a message. Fun.

I decide to go in person after work. It's just around the corner, picked because of how close and convenient it is. I shop there all the time anyway. I wait patiently behind other folks, then politely explain my situation to the lady behind the counter and she--very helpfully--starts looking up information and goes into the back to see if they have any in stock.

Alas, they do not. She also advises me that there is a hold on my prescription BECAUSE they don't have any in stock, and that there are other prescriptions ahead of me, so depending on how much they get in their next delivery, I might not be filled at that time and have to wait longer.

Again, this is no big deal to me. I understand. Supply chain issues. Greedy pharmaceutical companies not producing enough because it probably increases demand--or maybe they just underestimated how absolutely and deeply FUCKED my generation is. I tell them I'll check back in a couple of weeks.

So I wait. A couple of weeks pass. I check. Still none in stock. This repeats SEVERAL TIMES until THE WEEK OF THANKSGIVING.

I remind you--I got an evaluation and diagnosis back in early August. It is now LATE NOVEMBER and they finally say they have some in stock. The lady asks if I can wait. I tell her I've got some shopping to do and I'll wander on back later.

I do my shopping. I wait patiently. I do my thing. I come back and the lady flags me down.

"We do have it in stock but... I'm afraid your prescription has expired. You'll need to get a new one from your doctor."

UGH... are you kidding me?!?

I comport myself well. I'm understanding and polite. It's been a long while, sure, and I'm hugely disappointed, but I understand. Out of curiosity, I ask when the prescription expired.

She says it ended back at the end of September.

***GIANT. FUCKING. EYE-TWITCH.***

Again, I comport myself well in public. Inside, I'm FUMING.

WHY WOULD THEY NOT TELL ME THAT MY PRESCRIPTION HAD EXPIRED DURING ANY OF MY LAST FIVE VISITS?

Whatever... whatever, they probably don't check the paperwork until the meds arrive. Fine.

I call my doctor's office, worried I'm going to have a hell of a time getting someone to help me out just like it took so long to have the convo with my doc in the first place.

I get a call back--I forget exactly when. It might have been same day. It might have been the next. It might have been a couple of days. Regardless, it's a lot sooner than I feared.

I had left a message explaining the situation and the medical assistant says "I see that you need a new prescription for Adderall. But I also see a note on the file that the doctor wants to follow-up with you before refilling, so we can schedule a time for you to get with him to have that follow-up."

"I mean... okay, if you need to have him sign off on it before you send it, I understand, but the follow-up was to check on me after I had started it and been taking it for a while to see how I was doing. I haven't even GOTTEN the medication yet. I haven't been able to START taking it yet. Is there any way you can send a new prescription to my pharmacy so I get this ball rolling?"

He realizes he misread the transcription of the message: "OOOH... you haven't even GOTTEN it yet?!? WOW... okay yeah, we'll go ahead and submit a new prescription for you."

Our communication mishap is resolved, we end the call in a jovial fashion, I'm feeling pretty mildly okay. Things have been super stressful elsewhere in life for the last several months, and have only just really gotten real bad all over again and so if this is one thing I can get settled... I'm down to clown.

I get a call from the pharmacy THAT. DAY. Not even three hours later.

Fucking baller. Love it.

The pharmacy says they can't fill my prescription.

...wat...

They cite some law about needing to be within 20 miles of the prescribing doctor's office because it's a controlled substance.

It's Texas. I 100% believe the asshat lawmakers in this state have ABSOLUTELY taken ridiculously egregious steps to limit access to legally prescribed medications for a wide variety of reasons. No doubt, the front-facing explanation is "We want to make sure no one is using it as precursor to making Meth" and sure... that's a legit concern... but it's 60 pills, 20 mg each, my first prescription. I have no history of getting this anywhere else. I'm literally new to this. It shouldn't raise any red flags.

I'm willing to bet that these same asshat lawmakers also have a pretty dim view of mental health care.

"You don't have ADD, you're just hyper and lazy and undisciplined. You just need Jesus and a boot in the ass. NOW GET TO WORK!!" or some shit like that. Not saying they all think this... but I'm willing to bet a disgustingly shocking number of them do. Don't have proof. Just have experience with how fucked up my state is, and how the dominant party has--as a matter of record--acquitted a man who is credibly accused of getting an underage girl drunk and taking advantage of her. I won't use the R word here because I know some folks are triggered by it, but yeah... that's what he did. That's the state I live in. And moving out of state is prohibitively expensive... also, I wouldn't know where the fuck to go. My job is here. I can't take it with me I'm pretty sure, despite working part of every week from home.

Anyway, getting into the weeds: shit's fucked, yo.

The pharmacy won't fill the prescription. I frantically start trying to find proof of this law. I can't find it. I go on google maps and measure. Straight line from the doctor's office to the grocery store is 16.5 miles. So that's absolute fucking bullshit--unless they're going but like... DRIVEN miles... HORRAY!! MORE LOVE FOR THE CAR-CENTRIC CITY!!!

I call up my doctor's office and leave another message. I explain that the pharmacy says they can't fill it because of some 20 mile law. It's Friday. I know the doctor isn't in the office. I'm not expecting a call back that day.

As a fact finding mission--not really expecting to get any movement or satisfying answer--after I get off work, I go over to a local Walgreens. It's literally a block from where I live, even closer than the grocery store. The pharmacy is open until 9pm. I go in, I wait in line, and then I ask the pharmacy if they have Adderall in stock, if they know anything about a 20 mile law, and explain that the Rom Bum just down the street is cock blocking me on getting my brain fixed.

He's very disappointed to hear this. He doesn't know anything about a ***20*** mile law, but he's heard of a ***50*** mile law. I try to look this up later but I can't find anything about it either. Maybe I'm not searching in the right places. Maybe it's not a law, maybe it's a store policy and the pharmacists just SAY it's a law? I don't know. The Walgreens pharmacist gives me all kinds of options to get around the Adderall shortage--because it's specifically the 20mg he's having trouble keeping in stock. He offers the suggestion of different dosages taken at different frequencies. I politely tell him "Well, this is what my doctor wants me to start on to see how it affects me. Maybe we can adjust later once we know more."

He accepts this, apologizes that I've had so much trouble at the other place, and says "Yeah, if we can get someone at your doctor's office on the phone to confirm--because it's a controlled substance--then we should be able to fill it no problem if we have it in stock."

I thank you for his help and go home. I go to bed, unbelievably livid over this whole situation. Like... all day since I got the call from Gom Rum... I'm just... infuriated. I want to scream. I actually do scream, into one of my pillows. I want to break things. So I grab my pillow and start slamming it on to my mattress as hard as I can until I wear myself out. This is the only thing I will allow myself to do because I'm not apt to break anything--and yeah... I have anger issues. I have a BREATHTAKING temper. From what I understand, emotional disregulation is another symptom of ADD or ASD so... hey, it's in my fucking wheelhouse.

I knock my glasses off in the wild swinging of my arms to get some sense of physical satisfaction in wanting to do harm. I step on them and knock a lens out. Thankfully, it pops back in, but I have bent the frame just EVER so slightly and so I'm going to have to figure out how to bend it back so my glasses are more level on my face.

This is why I need to get my shit handled. This is why I self-isolate. This is why I stay away from people. Because I do shit LIKE THIS and I just... cannot control my temper sometimes. It's frustrating and it leaves me absolutely hating myself for failing to keep it together, for breaking something, for losing my cool, for letting the mask slip and showing the monster underneath. I'm told that ADD medication can help with this.

That bit doesn't click until much, much later. At any rate, I'm absolutely exhausted, angry, depressed, and thinking I should just give up on this whole endeavor because I've got too much other shit to put up with to deal with this nonsense as well.

I hold off on making any decision on that for the moment, because decisions made while emotional are frequently regretted. Ask me how I know.

The weekend passes and I just kind of sit in a funk the whole time. Nothing seems fun or enjoyable. Nothing holds my interest. I just coast through the weekend watching Youtube mainly.

When Monday comes... there's no return call from the doctor's office all day. Tuesday, I call and leave a message again. No call back the rest of the day. That's not unexpected, but it's still disappointing and it's getting me pissed off all over again. The decision to give up is gaining popularity in my brain.

Wednesday morning, at about 8:45 am, I've only just gotten into the office, I'm setting up, my phone is set to vibrate--but stupidly, I didn't learn my lesson from the lengthy game of phone tag back in September--the doctor's office calls.

I miss the call. ...FUCK...

I see the notification pop up on the screen after the fact, saying I have a voicemail. I lock my computer and hurry off to some quiet place where I can have a phone call without disturbing everyone else on the floor. I call, expecting to have to leave another message.

They pick up.

They actually pick up. Holy shit, red letter day, I've got a live person on the phone.

They say they got my message, they ask me a few questions like "Are they just saying they need to delay? They need more time?"

I tell them, "No... they are straight up refusing to fill the prescription because of some 20 mile law I can't find on the books, and the pharmacy is 16.5 miles from your office. I don't get it. I don't understand why I'm having so much trouble. Can we move it to a different pharmacy? I'm kind of done with this place."

The lady on the phone is disappointed and disturbed by this information, so she happily lets me pick a new pharmacy. It just so happens that because of my little fact-finding mission Friday night, I have one already picked out. I give her the details, she confirms, it's all good, she says she'll send it over that day.

At least I've got the doctor's office side of this taken care of. Now we just wait to see how Walgreens decides to dick me over.

Sports-fans, you will never guess what happens next.

I have another missed call at 3pm that same day.

It's Walgreens.

I have an email from them too.

MY PRESCRIPTION IS READY TO PICK UP.

THEY FILLED IT WITHIN 6 HOURS OF RECEIVING IT. IT'S READY. I CAN GO PICK IT UP TONIGHT!!! HOLY SHIT!! OH MY GOD IT'S A MOTHER FUCKING MIRACLE!!!

Unfortunately, I have another errand to run and I don't know how long it will take to get that sorted out. I have to drop my car off to get some maintenance done on it. Something about the CV boots leaking grease on the engine... the place actually showed me photos of my car doing this when I got the oil changed a month back. I didn't have the money at the moment to take it on so I decided "Let me save up a couple of paychecks and we'll tackle it... possibly December, no later than January. I don't drive that much. My commute to work is 10 minutes on the side roads. I can wait a bit longer than most."

Well, the situation happened to yield good results, I was able to get the money I need in my bank account to pay for the maintenance. I just needed to drop the car off overnight. They'd get it fixed over the course of half a day, call me when it's ready, and I can come pick it up. They even set me up with a loaner car in the interim... and fuck did I stress the hell out about my complex possibly towing it because I didn't get back home until after the front office was closed (it wouldn't have made any difference to call ahead of time, I wouldn't have the loaner car's details to give them).

I get the loaner, I head back up towards where I work, pass it, and go the other direction towards home... fun stuff needing to go in the opposite direction of home to do something right after work. Makes everything take so much longer to get done, but whatever. I've got the loaner, my car is gonna get worked on, I'll get it back tomorrow unless there's something that throws a monkey wrench into the plan.

I head up to Walgreens, I get my prescription. I go to a bookstore to buy a physical copy of "Project Hail Mary" because the audiobook I've got is damn good and I want a physical version I can hold... just in case... you know... Audible/Amazon decides to be a colossal dick. Then I pick up dinner. Tacos, from a really good taco place. I'm celebrating the fact that this whole Adderall thing has actually finally paid off. Now I just need to start taking it to see how it affects me.

That will come in the morning.

For now, tacos and tatter tots. Oh and youtube, lots of youtube. I watch lots of stuff on youtube. And the whole Somerton situation has shaken loose a lot of videos from a lot of people talking about it. And happily, it's not just rehashing the same details. They're all looking at it from different angles. Like "Why did we fall for this?" "How do we move forward?" "What should we as leftists do to try and keep this from happening again?" "What changes can and should we make?" stuff like that. It's great. I love seeing people try to problem solve rather than just try to dog-pile on. It's real NASA level shit and I'm a space nerd so NASA is my jam--as is their approach to so much of what they do. Just ask me about how I help my mom plan to cook large meals for holidays... I call it a flight plan... and it's one, giant recipe, planning out what needs to be done in what order, starting with prep and ending with service. Love me a good flight plan.

Just almost never have the will, interest, or focus to build flight plans for other aspects of my life, so I just end up winging it a lot. It works okay, but not always.

That's one reason why I wanna try the Adderall I've got sitting on my desk staring at me while I've got a mouth full of taco.

Among other reasons. I hear it's a mild appetite suppressant, and if it helps keep me from snacking between meals, hey, I might just lose a little weight, make my pants fit a little better, get some flexibility back. But... tomorrow. Not now. Now, I need to be able to sleep.

And sleep I do, grateful that at least one major issue has finally FINALLY been dealt with and I can actually FINALLY START this journey properly.

From early August to early December. Roughly four whole months, and I am less than 12 hours away from starting a medication that may help me get my brain to act a bit better, help me focus, help me even my temper out, help me lose weight--I honestly don't know what all it might do... hell, it might not do anything. I could have no reaction. Or an allergic reaction. No way to tell. That last one is super rare, but... with my luck and my allergies... I don't rule it out and keep in mind that I might need to call for rescue if I have a problem.

That was last night.

Today was my first day on the meds.

I've started a log of what I notice while I'm on the pill.

I'm going to collect data, review it, share it with my doctor, and we can make whatever decision best addresses what I find.

So far though, I'm encouraged. I'm very encouraged. It didn't have any shocking, intensely powerful effect... it's just been one day. I'm told it takes a week or two for the dosage to build up and start showing signs.

But what I've experienced so far... I'm encouraged.

It's hard to tell if it was because of the medicine, or if it was just because I had a really good day at work, but I'm energized, I'm enthusiastic, I have energy again... and I... may have... forgotten to eat my lunch (I did a lot of training today, people learning how to do workflows that I have information on, so I didn't have much time to stop and eat). The appetite suppressant aspect kept me from feeling hungry, so I wasn't distracted by that. That was nice.

We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Let me know if you'd like to read what I've got in my log. I feel like this might be info that other folks could find helpful or useful... or maybe more experienced ADD folks on the same medication can offer advice for how I can maximize what benefits I get from this... or share things to watch out for.

I'm new to this, and I'd love feed back.

Let me know if you wanna read the log. I don't really care about being too insanely private about it--though I don't have anything too revealing in it, nor plan on putting anything too revealing in it.

Anyway... yeah... long post is long.

This is probably the longest thing I've written since... fuck... February? March? And I felt good writing it.

Again, not sure if it was just how the day went, or if it's the meds.

But I'm hopeful about finding out more.

#Long post #journal #ADD #Attention Deficit Disorder #Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder #Personal Journey #Fuck the American health care system #Dragon Rant #Smokey's ADD Meds Journey

6 notes · View notes

everythingmaxriemelt · 1 year

Text

Max talks to Peter Claus in a radio interview on rbb Kultur - Der Tag programme - highlights Part 1

Claus: The first thing I want to know is what attracted you to the role (of Matthias from “Ernesto’s Island”)

Max: Of course I was very tempted to fly to Cuba. I found the prospect of actually visiting this country for myself and then working there very exciting. And before that, I met Ronald Vietz, the director and author of the film, who also comes from Mitte area in Berlin. And we share almost the same melancholy about the vanishing places in this area. For example the Tacheles, which for me was such a symbol of art and culture. You don't have to spend any money, you just met there without an appointment. And yes, we both miss it and the changes are so quickly. We don't want to cry over it, but maybe draw attention to it in our own way or commiserate with each other. Of course, I was very young at the time of ‘die Wende’ (NB: when the Berlin Wall came down), but I was probably socialized in such a way that you can say it's about human warmth or dealing with each other that isn't based on what advantage I have or what profit I make from it.

Claus: It is exaggerated in the film that Matthias is from the advertising industry. There's a really horrible scene where I got really really angry as a viewer where someone says this isn't about making the world a better place. It's not about making something nicer. We want to make money. And Matthias (eventually) learns that money is not everything, or so I believe.

Max: Naturally caricatures are presented in order to exaggerate, to achieve clarity. I think the advertising world is sometimes so perverted or fast-moving, that it has to work that way so that you are more successful and quicker than your competitor. Matthias was socialised in the East, but politically, he was so oveloaded by his parents, who were so politically committed that he might have become allergic and want to do things differently. And he ended up in advertising, where values are betrayed and that it’s not about people but about capital. And yes, that may be very clearly shown, but the film is not about what kind of career it is, but about his memory. The comparison between these faded memories, not all so glorified now or some were suppressed before because he had a difficult relationship with his mother. That’s why when the urn was sent to him, at first he can't do anything and doesn’t want to go to Cuba to fulfil her wish. But reluctantly he goes on the journey, and it becomes an inner journey. Of course, he has to confront the past. The comparisons of what you think or what you mean and what you remember, is super interesting to really find out his identity. Where do I come from, where do I really come from? What do I really believe in? Why do I believe in it? It’s a mind game too, couldn’t this system we have now in this reunited city be something else? Why is this one system we’ve just gotten help from everywhere? At least that’s how it felt when ‘die Treuhand’ (NB: the Trust Agency established by former GDR to re-privatise East German enterprises and farms) simply bought up 94% of farms and companies for a symbolic value. Couldn’t there have been another solution? So because it’s not socialised capitalism or something like that? Or how about if I grew up in this country (Cuba). How does it feel when I am not allowed to leave the country? Even though I’m in a very sunny, beautiful country with beautiful people, there’s a scarcity economy, people are being monitored and you don’t know what’s going to happen next.

The interview is available here to listen or download

#max riemelt #ernesto’s island #max german interview #rbb der tag #max radio interview

12 notes · View notes

polyamorouspunk · 9 months

Note

HEYYYYYYYYY its me your favorite annoying mutual who you claim isn’t annoying 😜

So. Question. Im starting therapy this week. Or at least its an intake appointment. And I was wondering if you have any experience with any therapy stuff to kinda. Maybe give me an idea of what I should expect?

Like, I know my plp works in the field and stuff and she does therapy too but for completely different reasons than Im gonna try going for. And I was hoping I could get another person’s perspective.

Not gonna lie, I’ve had some not so great experiences with therapy/counseling before, so Im hoping this time goes better. But yeah

- 🗝️

I mean if you’ve already had therapy you know the basics. First appointment is meeting and saying what brought you to therapy. Next appointment is continuing to establish. I would argue even by the third appointment you’re still getting used to your therapist and establishing a relationship with them. I think every relationship you have with a therapist is different. I felt like my last therapist was good at guiding me to talk about things I needed to talk about. My therapist now I honestly just sit in silence until he asks me something. It’s really awkward. My last appointment I tried to bring up the stuff I had written down to talk about and he kind of side-stepped the stuff I really wanted to talk about to ask why I self-diagnose with BPD and how it can be trendy to self-diagnose and how “The DSM-5 isn’t the Bible” but also “kids will read the DSM-5 and say it sounds like them and then say they have a disorder” and blah blah blah. He knows I’m a psych student and therefore sometimes it feels like I can level with him and have conversations about the field of psychology and then sometimes it feels like “well as a professional in the field I have to recommend against self-diagnosis” or something and I’m like I’m here to talk about all the red flags that the girl I’m lusting after just dropped on me not whether or not I have blue brain worms or brain worms that just look blue under the sunlight but are actually brown like bluejay feathers like. Fr. Uh. I mean you were *there* with me when I said I don’t particularly like my therapist but I’ve been having a hard time finding a new one. I, personally, prefer therapy where I can work on something since my last therapist unlocked the realization that I talk much more openly when I am busying myself with something which is why I think art therapy would be helpful for me. I purposefully planned the last serious conversation I had to have while I was working on things with my hands. Some therapists are really chatty and talk about themselves a lot and compare their experiences in life or with other clients to yours. Some therapists only want to focus on you and what you feel. Some want to give you advice, some want to give you techniques. But your level of openness and comfort is going to dictate how much and what you get out of it. If I was more comfortable with my therapist I might have been able to put my foot down and say “this isn’t what I want to talk about in my session today, perhaps we can revisit this another time”, but I just don’t have that level of comfort with my therapist because I don’t like him that much. He’s a great guy! He’s just not the right style of therapist for me. It’s really great to have an openly queer therapist but I need someone more rigid who can get me to open up better and doesn’t monologue at me. That’s just something I’ve learned. You’ll learn what works from when it’s worked in the past and you’ll learn what you need when you don’t get it. That’s just how it is. I’m hoping I can revisit the stuff I actually wanted to talk about in my next session instead of having the focus be put on why I need to ID with BPD and not “so I have someone that said some things to me that’s making me concerned about the direction our potential relationship is taking but I don’t really know how to interoperate it, what are your thoughts as someone who hears these therapy buzzwords a lot?”

#punk gets mail #see how I talked about myself for your question #whenever I give advice I compare to my life but that’s not what I need in therapy #it’s great when my mom does it giving me advice but when it’s a professional therapist I’m paying it’s like I don’t need to hear about it #personal #I get better therapy on here for real

4 notes · View notes

words-after-midnight · 1 year

Text

Nico's favorite tag game (ie. Find the Word)

Thanks for the tag @talesofsorrowandofruin! My words were survivor, spite, secure, and strength.

Tagging: @sunset-a-story, @thatndginger, @pertinax--loculos, @winterandwords, @novel-emma, @ls-daydreams, @theboarsbride, @nanashi23, @sarahlizziewrites + whoever else wants to jump in!

Your words are lend, tooth, early, heavy, intense.

I pulled these from an annex document to the narrative of Life in Black and White (Annex D), which is essentially the integral collection of Gabriel's journal entries from 2002, a key year in his life. And it's long, because this man keeps a near-daily journal. Enjoy!

Survivor (survive)

Mood: Both physically and existentially tired, exhausted, sleepy, over it - find a thesaurus.

Dr. Ross appointment today. I was right to be worried. He’s not only upping my Lunesta (which we were trying really hard to avoid), but the Seroquel is also going up a bit. He says I need to get a sleep study done this month if there’s no improvement within the next few weeks. There'd fucking better be, because I can't survive another week of this, let alone three.

Spite (despite)

I have so many good ones for "despite" in this doc that I'm giving you two, because I can't pick between them. 🤣

One of the nurses came by my room earlier to tell me I had a phone call, so I went to the phone room. Surprisingly enough, it was Jeff. He was all like, “So, how’re you making out in there?” Yeah, I could practically hear him cackling internally. The son of a bitch is getting a real kick out of this shit. At least someone’s laughing, I guess. I practically hissed into the phone, like, “I’m bored out of my fucking mind, no thanks to you.” He’s laughing, like, “Welcome to my life, man!” I was smiling despite myself, but at least he couldn’t tell.

I asked him if he wanted to go downstairs and watch some of his favorite movies after breakfast, knowing full well there was no way he would say no to making me sit through The Emperor's New Groove again (I reached acceptance on that last night, so I was prepared). We went downstairs and he wrapped himself up in a blanket like a five-year-old and sat next to me on the couch while we watched a cartoon Incan clone of him tyrannically run an empire and then promptly get turned into a llama. He can quote this entire movie. I cracked up a couple of times despite myself.

Secure (insecure)

I got into it a bit with Jeff just now because he left the house yesterday afternoon and didn’t come back overnight. When he came home, I asked him where he was. He just shrugged and said he was out with friends. I asked him which friends. He laughed out loud and told me I was acting like a jealous boyfriend. I got mad, raised my voice, and basically said, “I’m sorry for getting a little concerned considering what happened the last time you left the house and didn’t come home.” He just stared me down for a good ten seconds, and then started laughing. I told him it wasn’t funny. He said, “Yes, it is funny. You think I’m suddenly going to get my ass handed to me every time I go out? Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” I just walked out and came up to my room. I already feel terrible. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. I’m trying to resist going back out there right now to try to talk to him and apologize for being an insecure piece of shit. I need to give him some time to cool off.

Strength

I brought him a travel mug full of coffee for the way back, but I made sure to make it regular strength just to annoy him a little. It definitely annoyed me to have to get up at five in the fucking morning because this jackass can't leave other people's shit the fuck alone.

I don’t know how many times we’re going to have to do this before he gets it into his thick head that maybe this shit isn’t the best use of his time. He needs to get a damn hobby or something.

#writeblr #tag game #libaw

10 notes · View notes

theretirementstory · 7 months

Text

Here I am again, bringing you a slice of my life in the beautiful Champagne region. It is currently 14c but I am assured, by Météo, that we will have 26c this afternoon. Unseasonably warm but I am not complaining after having spent a lot of the sunny days of summer in a hospital bed.

The Foire aux Bulles last Sunday turned out to be a successful day for the ladies of the knitting, crochet and patchwork group. Two of my items sold which was a nice surprise. Apparently, they were talking to a lady who is interested in joining the group, she sews as well so we may manage to attract more people if we offer that facility. the more the merrier I say.

While we are onto the good news, I really must pass on the wonderful news that “The Ex Psychology Graduate” received her grade for her dissertation and only went and got herself a first! She is now awaiting one more grade to calculate her overall Masters grade. Huge congratulations are in order 🥳🥳.

“The Trainee Solicitor”, celebrated his birthday and what a wonderful birthday he had. It has continued until the weekend (well why just keep it to one day!)

“The Daddy” has not had his children this weekend, he has been visiting elderly relatives and friends as well as working too. He has “irons in the fire” to make his work life more manageable, at the moment he has a long journey to and from work (I remember those days), to be able to reduce this is so much better, mentally, physically and financially. We will have to see what happens but I wish him luck.

I do believe I have employed my new cleaner 😃, she is coming on Monday and Thursday and I am so looking forward to that. She requested a step ladder, unfortunately I don’t have one and being unable to go out shopping I still haven’t got one. Maybe my neighbour could lend me his for this week so that she can clean the windows and the shutter housing.

I am still reliant upon my friends (and neighbour) to do shopping for me. It is so hard trying to think what to have to eat, at least if I was in the shops I may see something which catches my eye. As most of my friends cook from scratch (no convenience foods for them) one friend seems to not have the faintest idea of portion sizes. She was trying to buy me a 750g shepherds pie 🙄. I have to cook my food and eat it within 15 minutes, it cannot be reheated so I doubt I could have “polished that pie off” all by myself. I have been rather nauseous with no taste so it would have been a lot of waste I reckon. I was salivating this morning as I asked another friend if she could buy me some greek yoghurt, unfortunately the supermarket in town didn’t have any 😩, however, she is going out this afternoon (with her work) if she manages to catch the supermarket before it closes she will look to see if she can get some there.

Anie delivered some hot soup, compote and some jars of another concoction, I hadn’t the heart to tell her I couldn’t eat any of it, but I did send her the information leaflet I was given. She quickly responded saying you cannot eat any of that food! It is so sad because people are only being kind but I really need to keep myself “right” as I don’t want an upset tummy or worse while my immunity is still low.

Another success was phoning the plumber and arranging an appointment for him to service my central heating boiler.

My gardener pulled up outside of my neighbours house on Monday and I was trying to catch him about trimming my hedges. Typically, I turned my back and next time I looked he had gone! I did ring him and all he said was he would ring and let me know when he can come out. Well better than nothing I suppose.

It looks as if this week has been very successful for me, I like weeks like that!

Now let’s have a look at the songs I have chosen. It seems to be a recurring theme of musicians taken before their time but such is life and as I have said before they leave us with some fantastic songs that we can listen to again and again. So my first one this week is by Phil Lynott, the song is back to 1982, “Old Town”.

The second song I have chosen is an album track featuring the distinctive voice of a Middlesbrough (UK) born “lad”. The track is “Weep No More” from the album “Straight Shooter” by Bad Company released in 1975 (I remember it like it was yesterday) If you decide to listen to the album online (or even just want to hear this track) let it play the next track “Shooting Star” as it really was a toss up between these two tracks. Just this week I found out that Paul Rodgers had suffered a massive health scare 4 years ago. Although thankfully he appears to be fully recovered and has just released a new album.

The photos this week should be titled “What a difference a day makes” (cue for another song).

Well that just about wraps up my week for this week. There will be more from me next week!

Bon dimanche!

#barsuraube #trees #nature #photography #crafts #70’s music #80’s music

4 notes · View notes

timemachineyeah · 2 years

Text

This is going to be a vent post. I’m fine. It’s okay! Sometimes I just need to rage uselessly against things no one can control before once again trying to be my usual pragmatic make-the-best-of-things self.

If you do not wish to read a vent, that’s understandable. Please scroll. Okay. 😘

Jesus Charcuterie Christ I am so fucking sick of chronic illness.

I am tired of the dirty bathroom, which I cannot clean because the energy just doesn’t exist even though I want to clean it. Even though I like cleaning a bathroom! When I was a kid I used to volunteer to be the one assigned to the bathroom!

This morning I woke up and changed the litter and I think a box was heavier than I had anticipated or something but I ended up so exhausted I couldn’t really stand or move my arms. It took me twenty minutes to eat a yogurt cup. My brother came home with groceries and I couldn’t jump up to help him put them away. I wanted to get out of his hair by going back to my room but I needed to sit for another hour before I had rested enough to walk back up the stairs.

It’s not always this bad. But god, when it’s this bad I want to scream. I want to tear out the tongues of every well meaning person or doctor who’s ever told me to just slowly try to build my stamina. Have you tried yoga? You should be doing aerobic exercise to the point of not being able to speak between breaths at least three time a week! My body gives out before I can get winded. My hands shake. I can’t open the cracker box. I can barely swallow. Sometimes I can’t hold a conversation. I hate it. I hate it.

I went to the doctor in March and made a follow up appointment that was supposed to happen today, but I got a call that it was canceled and rescheduled for next month. I should be relieved because I was really going to have to push myself to get there. I was able to go back to bed. Instead I just want the doctor to see me. To hear me. To do something.

“We’re not going to be able to support you forever”, my mom tells me, at least once or twice a month. Not to be shaming. She’s just telling the truth. My parents are aging. Their income is decreasing, their health is declining, they don’t know how Dad’ll ever be able to retire but his job is actively killing him. I never know what to say. I always say, “I know”, because I know. But I also know I literally cannot do any more than I’m doing. I had to take breaks between lifting the yogurt spoon to my mouth. I had to take the stairs one at a time.

I want to do so many things. I have so many ideas, so many dreams, so many causes. I want to scream, “Mom, you more than anyone know how stubborn I am! How determined I can be!!!” I am too tired to even have big feelings. Anger and despair are both exhausting. A good mood gives me more energy, so I have become So. Fucking. Tempered. Kind. Balanced. Rosy. I can and WILL find the bright side if it fucking kills me because if I don’t it will. But even that is tiring. It’s so tiring to not be able to have the bad feelings because you know the bad feelings will cost you even more of your life.

I know this is real. I just want any other person to know it too, as surely as I do. I just wish a doctor could see it, acknowledge its truth, tell me why. Bonus points if they can make it even a little better.

I looked up the date of my first MRI, the one I got when this all started. A few weeks ago while lying on the floor between my bedroom and the bathroom I started to wonder about MS, the disease that killed my mother’s little sister. It was the first thing I suspected when this all started so it was the first thing they looked for. I looked up that MRI, and it was in 2014.

Eight years. This has been going on for eight years.

I might have them do another, on the off chance this IS multiple sclerosis and the first MRI was just too early. I was gonna ask about it today, but the appointment was canceled.

I want to clean the bathroom. Maybe I can just clean the sink. Maybe that won’t be too much.

I miss going on long walks. I used to walk ten miles in a day. Now a block wipes me out.

I am adjusting. I am accommodating myself as much as I can. I am doing my best. If it never gets better I will find a way to make the best of what I’ve got.

But eight years. God fucking dammit. I could’ve done so much. Who would possibly fake this and why. For what??? Attention? Sympathy? Where. I don’t get those things. To get out of work? Even the work I love? Even play? Even free time and friends??? I lose those things as much, if not more. I am not married, I don’t have kids - these are things I wanted! I want to date! Fuck! I’m so mad. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon on a Monday and I am sitting in my room with the lights off and all the curtains drawn around my bed typing on my phone made as dark as possible so it doesn’t strain my eyes and I would rather be doing so many other things. Instead I’m probably going to go back and forth between a video game and my bed all day. Maybe I’ll wash the sink.

It’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. But this is real. This is so real. I have lost so much. This isn’t fun for me. It’s not a game. And it should be a cry for help, because I need help, but I actually fucking hate asking for help. I just want to be able to do it myself. That’s all I ever wanted.

#timemachine wuz here #chronic illness #cn vent #this is okay to reblog if it resonates

27 notes · View notes

timeoverload · 9 months

Text

I slept for 12 hours and I'm still tired. I woke up with a sore throat and I've been coughing a lot so I think I might be getting sick. I hope I'm not though. My body still hurts. I really wanted to be productive today but I'm not sure how much I'm going to get done. I will try to do something today at some point. I'm going to pick up something healthy to eat later and maybe that will make me feel better. I wish I didn't spend every weekend feeling like shit but I know I won't have to live like this forever.

I actually got invited to my co-workers going away party next Saturday night so I hope I'm feeling better by then. I'm happy she invited me even though we haven't always gotten along and maybe she doesn't dislike me as much as I thought she did. I haven't been to a party in so long so I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited to see some people I used to work with that I haven't seen in a long time. I haven't done anything fun this summer so it would be nice to be social for once. It's not too far away so I'm going to try to walk there so I don't have to drink and drive. Hopefully I can find someone to take me home afterward so I don't have to walk in the dark. I need to get out of the house so I will probably go even if I don't feel good.

I'm not going to get another chance to do anything for a while after that since I'm not going to that concert on the 26th. I really hope I can get my money back since I spent quite a bit on those tickets. It probably wasn't a good idea to spend that much anyway. I guess it was an impulsive decision. I feel dumb for buying them and I shouldn't have done that but at least I tried to find someone to go with. Maxwell, I understand why you can't go with me and it's not your fault so I can't be upset about that. Even if I did go, I would have to spend the whole time trying to avoid running into my ex because I'm pretty sure he's going with his girlfriend. I remember him texting me a long time ago and trying to get me to go with him because he was trying to convince me to get back together. Obviously I said no to going with him because I wanted to go with someone else and I told him that. I knew I would rather miss the concert than have to go with him because I wouldn't enjoy it. I'm still so happy and thankful that I'm not with him anymore. My life is so peaceful without him around. I do not want to see him at all, especially if I'm by myself. I would need someone there to defend me if I did run into him. I remember him getting confrontational with me and other people when he was drunk at the concerts we would go to together. It was so embarrassing and we almost got kicked out of a few shows because of the way he was acting. I'm sure he would leave me alone now but it still makes me anxious. It sucks because he and I share the same taste in music so I have to avoid going to shows by myself so I don't have to see him. I have already seen Mastodon and Gojira before so it's not a total loss. I'm sure they will be back again sometime and I'm trying not to get too worked up about it. I know I will get the chance to go to concerts again in the future and I'm excited to do that.

I hope I get a call from the doctor sometime because I still haven't heard anything. I really wanted to get my appointment scheduled today but they told me not to call until they contact me first. It would be nice to know if I need to do something to balance out my hormones so I can stop being so emotional. I'm wondering if my cortisol level is too high because I've been gaining weight but it's mostly going to my belly. I can't wear some of my pants now. I guess I've also been eating a ton of fried food lately. I'm glad that I don't look like a skeleton anymore at least.

I also have to go to the dentist in a few weeks so hopefully I don't have any cavities. I have been much better about taking care of my teeth than I was when I was younger so I think it will go well. I always get a lecture about vaping though. I want to stop but I still don't think it's as bad for me as smoking cigarettes.

I've been trying to figure out when I'm going to have time to take the cats to the vet in between all of my other appointments. That's not going to be cheap but they need to go so badly. I'm considering taking them to a different vet but I'm not sure yet. I'm not super fond of the place that I had to take them to before. They couldn't even call me back when I talked to them earlier this week so I'm having second thoughts. I'm not looking forward to taking them by myself because they are so heavy but I'm going to do it anyway. They hate being in the car and I don't want to drive across town with them so maybe I can find a place that's a little closer. I'm going to do some research first.

I have an appointment to see the eye doctor too next month but I might have to reschedule because it's on a Tuesday. I am going to see if they will let me leave work and come back because my eyes are bothering me and I need new glasses again. I really like my purple glasses though and I don't want to stop wearing them so maybe I can order them again with my new prescription. It's so hard for me to find glasses that fit my face and I think the ones I'm wearing right now are technically made for kids. Last year they told me I will need to get bifocals in the future and I think I need them now. I guess I will just have to wait and see what they say about it.

I'm going to try not to worry about things too much the rest of the day. I don't have any obligations the rest of the weekend so I know I will accomplish some stuff. I'm looking forward to going on a drive in a little bit and getting some food. I think that will make my day better.

I also feel a little better after venting about stuff. It really helps. I appreciate everyone that listens to me and it means the world to me. You know how to put a smile on my face even when I'm feeling bad. I always look forward to hearing from you!! You all make me so happy and I love you all!!!! Thank you to my dad and thank you to everyone at IBT for being so supportive and kind to me during this time. I love you Maxwell and I'm so glad I met you and my life is so much better with you in it. I wouldn't have so much support without your help. Thank you!!!! 💖💖💖💖💖💖

I'm going to stop rambling now because I've been writing for a long time and I'm hungry now. I hope you all enjoy the rest of the day and that everyone has a good weekend!! :)

#personal

2 notes · View notes

greypetrel · 1 year

Note

💐💘 and 👂 for Aisling!

Heyyyy! Thank you very much! <3

Tis the prompt list

💐 : What is their courting style? How would they woo someone?

A mixture of acts of services and quality time. Which is something she naturally does to friends and people she cares for, but with a loved person it gets bigger and more. Five minutes free between two appointments? Pops by where you are just to say hello, a kiss if it's the case, and then off again to the next meeting. Will bring you your very favourite dish for lunch unprompted (she can't cook so it's better if she doesn't make it unless it's something very very basic -she arrives at cooking some eggs, but ask her to bake a cake and she'll invent a Rage Demon living in the oven instead of admitting cooking is not one of her talents. Hi, Doris the haunting queen.), bring you this or that from her travel because she was reminded of you in some way. She's not exceptional at Creation Magic but she will grow your favourite flower and gift it to you just because it's Friday. Search for more physical contact, more purposefully. She got SLOW with Cullen because they were friends, the thing with Cassandra blocked her and she was SURE he didn't reciprocate. The showering you with attention can get pretty obnoxious if you're not interested, but with a direct no, she'll stop immediately.

💘 : Is your OC a very good flirt? Are they charming?

Eh. Yes and no. She's decent at courting, but she never really learnt how to flirt (she has one -1- experience before the Inquisition. Good as far as relationships goes, flirting is not something she never learnt to do after 17). Verbally flirting is stiff and a little by the book ("Got you some gardenias because they're as pretty as you! I grew them myself! 😏" to Cassandra. Cassandra is a sap and so she didn't laugh at her, but you can. Bull did.)

Charming... She's more on the cute side, I think. She's friendly and easy to talk to, and a very good listener. She has her moments, but she's maybe a little too shy to be properly charming in more than a cute way. Confidence for her comes just when her pride is hurt on some things she knows she's good at, or she needs to keep up to do something she's scared of. So yeah, it's... Not an every day feat.

👂 : Does your OC have an attractive voice?

I have to admit, here, that I'm terrible at voice claims ahahahahah xD I got two playthroughs with her and so I kinda imagine her with the voice she has in game (the British accent one, again, just the sound and timbre, nothing at all to say I agree with the VA on anything).

I do have another passable claim, as far as singing goes (but I heard her speaking too, and Scottish accent apart, I can hear Aisling speaking as her as well), which could be Kathleen MacInnes. Aisling is a decent singer, not exceptional, but can hold a note, will hum when she's happy. Maybe she can be attractive when singing, but she needs to be coaxed into it... And she does her best in sad, melancholic songs. She loves best those songs that needs a chorus, she won't sing for the sake of it if other asks her too and if she's to be alone... She just won't and get shy about it.

(I have this headcanon of her and Rylen annoying the whole of Griffon's Wing Keep by going back and forth singing Kate Dalrymple super fast at random times, after she tells him that "oh yeah we've been in Starkhaven for a while with the clan, do you know this nice song?". One starts abruptly, the other replies, Aisling fakes an accent, they go at super speed, everyone else at the tenth time starts yelling at them to please stop.)

#oc ask game #aisling lavellan #greypetrel replies #“In a wee cot house far across the muir-” *Cassandra starts yelling*

4 notes · View notes

tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 years

Text

Well, I feel fucking terrible. My voice is completely gone, I don’t have a thermometer but I half of me is very hot and half of me is very cold and I’m sure I have a fever, and I’ve gotten out of breath from walking about eight metres to the bathroom, and I cough every time I sit up. This is not a good day. Here are some things I think about that:

1) Katherine Ryan can fuck off, actually, with telling the audience of a show I was in last month that COVID is no big deal, she knows because she had it twice and it was fine for her so of course that means no one should worry about it (yes she was joking when she said it, but she paired that joke with a whole routine that genuinely defended anti-vaxxers, also I realize that most people have it much worse than Katherine or I and they’re the ones who actually matter but I feel like absolute shit right now and even if it got no worse than my situation, that would still be bad enough for it to be worth caring about COVID). And for saying only weird extreme people would still wear thick masks these days and would get another booster shot. I had a fourth shot booked, and then I canceled it because I unexpectedly went out of town during the week of the appointment, and I didn’t get around to rebooking it. I so wish I hadn’t made that mistake.

I’m not trying to cancel Katherine Ryan or whatever, I’m just mad right now and that’s as good a place as any to direct it.

2) I’m actually freaking out a little right now. Logically I know it’s okay. But I’ve always had health anxiety, obviously the pandemic has made it much worse, and now, for the first time in a couple of years (aside from when I got sick May, but I never really thought that was COVID and it wasn’t nearly as bad as this), I have an actual reason to be anxious about my own health. COVID passes fairly soon for most people, but for some people it lasts months or longer and some people end up in the hospital or worse and I’m pretty terrified that I went out on one night and ruined my entire fucking life by doing that.

So having said that… anyone got any distractions or good comfort things to watch/read/listen to in this situation? No More Jockeys has been amazing all day, though I’ve had to take breaks from looking at the screen when I get too much of a headache. Those three guys have been getting me through this so far, and they’ve done it very well and it’s pretty much the perfect thing for me to watch when I need something easy enough so I can focus on it and nice enough to be a comfort and engaging enough to be a distraction. But in case this lasts a while, anyone have any other ideas for similar things? Or, and I’m just going to come right out and ask for what I want here, anyone want to tell me something that might cheer me up? Because I’ve been doing this all day but now it’s nighttime and I can’t sleep.

3) Oh come on, Mark Watson was not cheating with his pen, he maybe cheated once with his phone but I’m starting to think he probably didn’t even actually do that. People in the YouTube comments, stop giving him shit for that, because it is genuinely bothering me to see him try to suppress his fidgetiness. Speaking as someone who’s supposed to start an in-person job-like thing next week, and I’m pretty fucking sure it won’t start on Monday anymore but it’ll start whenever I’m better (you know, assuming I haven’t ruined my whole life), and I’m anxiously thinking about how while I’m there I’m going to have to constantly remind myself to keep my hands still and keep my gaze in one place and try for eye contact and make sure I’m not doing any weird gestures because I’d like to seem normal enough for this to lead to an actual job… speaking as someone who’s going to have to do that in a proper professional environment, stop making me watch someone do it when he’s just getting drunk with friends in a YouTube show. Give the man back his clicky pens.

…That last point was not actually related to my current illness, but I wanted to express it anyway. Though Watson is helping me out in a couple of ways today. Whenever I get anxious on a flight, I think about all the people I know who fly all the time and it’s no big deal. My friend who’s a pilot. My dad, who used to travel frequently for work. My friends in my sport who are more successful than I am, and fly to international tournaments all the time. Professional sportspeople or entertainment people who are always flying around. I think if it’s okay for all of them to do this all the time and they’re almost always safe, then it’s not likely to go wrong when I do it only rarely.

This makes no sense, but the safest I’ve ever felt on a flight was when I once traveled to a tournament with a coach who was also a three-time Olympic medalist, and has all kinds of other accolades and is one of the most famous people in our sport worldwide. I kept thinking… obviously [this quite important person] isn’t going to die on a two-hour flight between two pretty unimportant cities, to a tournament that’s a big deal to me but basically nothing to her. That would be ridiculous. It doesn’t happen that we turn on social media and learn that a major figure in our community is gone because of something like that. Obviously this plane isn’t going to crash.

Actually, the flight to that tournament might be the second least anxious I’ve ever felt on a plane. The least anxious is after that tournament, during which I’d had a terrible weekend and drank until 5:30 AM and was nowhere near sober when I flew home a few hours later. Even though I did not happen to share the plane home with anyone who was more important than my most important teammate (and that person was kind of a big deal, but not such a big deal that they’d keep a plane in the air with their sheer stardom), but I was drunk so it was fine. Actually every time I’ve been on a plane drunk I’ve felt fine. Does anyone want to hear a Drive-By Truckers song about that? I was playing this on repeat during a whole flight home that I took a couple of weeks ago (at least, I played it during all moments when I was too nervous to focus on the Stewart Lee DVD show that I was trying to watch while not panicking) because its lyrics were appropriate and just fucking great lyrics.

undefined

youtube

“Well your wishes and your feelings/Your bad dreams and intuitions/Are about as much use to me right now as a brand new set of golf clubs/We've been this close to death before, we were just too drunk to know it/Guess the price of being sober is being scared out of your mind/ When it comes your time to go, ain’t no good way to go about it/Ain't no use in thinking ‘bout it/You'll just drive yourself insane/There comes a time for everything/And the time has come for you, so shut your mouth and get your ass on the plane”

I guess you kind of have to know who the Drive-By Truckers are to know how funny it is to say that someone’s fear of flying is about as useful as a brand new set of golf clubs are to the people in that band. Just trust me, they’re not the sort of people who play golf.

To be honest, I’m feeling a bit drunk right now, despite having resolutely scrapped my plans to consume any alcohol today, due to the invasion of the plague. I’m feeling slightly dizzy and out of it, and it’s possible that the plague is having a similar effect on me that whiskey would. That could be the explanation for why I just went on a mostly irrelevant tangent, or it could just be that that’s my nature. The way that tangent ties into the rest of this post is to say my recent forays into Twitter haven’t been a completely bad thing, because it’s how I know that Mark Watson had to sit out the end of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival due to COVID just a couple of weeks ago. He seemed fine. His chief complaint was that he didn’t want to cancel his shows or miss the festivities, and now he’s out there doing free shows after they cancel his venue. So… if I can convince my brain to accept the fallacious logic that other people being fine on other planes means this particular plane won’t crash, then I can just barely use that same logic to convince myself that if Mark Watson found COVID no problem then I’ll be okay too. The thing about irrational anxiety is sometimes you can beat it with irrational logic.

Anyway, at this point writing this is just vaguely therapeutic for me. It’s another distraction. Let me know if anyone’s got any advice. And thanks for this website and everything, you’re all great.

#Youtube

8 notes · View notes