In case your mom never told you, this mom loves you and I’m so, so, so proud of you. I see all that you’ve accomplished, even if it’s just little things. Little things can be mountains, and you’re doing amazing. The world needs you, and would be absolute shit without you.

Sending you a big momma hug 🖤

You are worthy of love 💖

Dear whoever is reading this, (whether a friend, stranger, however you feel right now even if you aren't sad..)

No matter what you're going through, and in case nobody told/reminded you today or ever..

You're enough

You're loved

You're beautiful

You deserve and are worthy or love and loving.

And so so so much more. You wouldn't ever know how proud i am of you ❤️

If anybody tries to tell you otherwise, they're wrong. To me, you are all these things :)

I hope this made you smile or at least feel a little better than you were before. I love you <33

- xx Ari (@y-vna)

Hello, you have been visited by the self care snake!

Look after yourself! Drink some water! Get something to eat! Get some air, breath! You are doing great! Take all the time you need for yourself, don't overwork yourself too much! :)🐍💛

The Love of Loviatar - Abdirak x Reader

Hello darlings~ It's finally done, though I'm still working on the longer Abdirak x He Who Was piece. Don't worry you shall have it~

The Love of Loviatar is written in second person, where the reader is of no specified gender and suffers chronic pain. This a devotion to all of you who know pain too intimately, an invitation to spend an evening with Loviatar's most devoted Cleric, who will love you for who you are, how you are, and show you a pleasure beyond pain.

Full fic, 4,804 words of it, is on AO3 - ~Click Here~

**The following is a sample, please be aware this fic contains descriptions of pain, injury, and everything you might expect from Abdirak. See tags and fic summary for more.**

"Dear One… No..." Abdirak paused, a slight smile reaching even his eyes with a surprising warmth. "Dearest One, I can sense the devotion to Loviatar in your every joint, your nerves sing to her without the need of a whip or cane." You looked up at the tall and imposing figure, muscles exposed and taught, skin covered in a myriad of scars that told a hundred stories of their own. You weren’t sure how you even ended up here, sat in a chair that seemed like one of the only soft things in what otherwise appeared to be a dungeon. Although, you realised, what kind of a dungeon is adorned with chandeliers and velvet curtains?

--- some time later ---

By the time he was done, you felt more than naked. You felt so completely seen in that moment. It was almost as if the dark cleric could look beyond your flesh, watching the electricity of your nerves lighting up with every ache that tormented you. “Which pains vex you most, Dearest One?” He remained standing, looking down at you with concern. You listed them off, one by one. The pressure points, the aches that began deep in your bones and blossomed in your joints like poisonous plants, the way certain movements could feel like your body was viscerally ripping itself apart. “And it’s all just so…exhausting.” He finally knelt before you, looking up at you, in a manner that reminded you so much of the more traditional clergy you knew from your world. He took one of the barbed spikes from the strap on his arm, a small and simple tool of vicious metal. It seemed…intimate, the way he held it carefully and ran it so lightly up your shin that you barely felt anything at all. “Let us begin, but we shall start small and slow. Let the volume of the sensation increase from a whisper to a roar, and do not hold back your voice.” He smiled, kissing the top of your knee with a gentle grace. “You spend enough of your life keeping your pain to yourself. Tonight you must share all of it. With Loviatar. With me. ” The barb scraped your inner thigh, barely even breaking the first layer of the skin, but the subtle stinging heat drew a sharp breath into your lungs. And yet…the heat was not only pain. He was so close, the warmth of his hand as the barb traced intricate patterns across your legs, only applying enough pressure to scratch when you were ready for it. Your heart began to quicken, the desire for more rising with each new motion. You almost reached out to stop him when he stood, guiding your legs onto the bed so you were laying on your back. For a room full of such painful implements, the mattress was remarkably soft, the satin sheets almost soothing in themselves with the subtle cool feel against your warm and increasingly flushed skin. He positioned you near the edge, so he could freely stand beside you, his form looking even more imposing above you now…but somehow the shadow of him blocking out the world beyond felt more like a comfort. A wide crimson candle appeared from within a drawer and he carefully lit it with a swift bit of easy magic. A simple gesture, but something you’d never seen before. It was…fascinating. Almost as entrancing as the way the warm light made the shadows dance across his face, his body, the sharp glint of metal on his accessories catching the light with a hint of danger. That’s what this should be. Your mind should be screaming danger, your feet should be pounding the floor to get away with the usual pain numbed by adrenaline for the brief burst that many could be capable of in a crisis, your lungs should be bursting with a cry for help-

But there was nothing. There was calm, safety, a feeling of complete trust. If he wished to hurt you, he most certainly could. You’d given him all your weaknesses, let yourself be stripped bare in body and soul, laid prone before him and told him he could have complete authority over your senses. He could torture you in ways that would make the most hardened criminal look soft by comparison. He could end your entire life in one moment, but you had your word, your signal, and even as he smiled at you with a wicked light in his eyes it was not cruelty within him. The first drip of molten wax hit your shoulder with a searing heat that dissipated almost as suddenly as it came. A different warmth bloomed around it, spreading into the skin, pulling the pain from the nerves deeper inside to pay attention to the new sensation. You bit your lip. It was…intense. He waited a few seconds before tilting the candle again, the next drop landing on your hip. You writhed as a reflex, breath filling your lungs too quickly as you pulled the air in with a hiss of tensed lips. “That’s it, Dearest One, let me replace your senses. Do not shy away from it. Let yourself feel .” --- The rest is on AO3, it's just too long to go here ---

Hey, friendly reminder that you are loved.

You might not think you are,

your brain might tell you that you aren't,

but I promise you are.

And, hell, even if you were the last person on earth,

you would still be loved.

Because the stars and space and sky and everything that helped make you you,

looks to you with loving eyes.

I want to get to the bottom of neurodivergent burnout. I feel like there are a lot of people that have no context to take it seriously in, so they don't.

As with a lot of these posts, writing this is my way of ironing out my own understanding - take it with a grain of salt, I'm not a professional. I've tried to keep it general but as I'm speaking from a late-diagnosed audhd experience, it will lean in that direction.

Also, depending on how much you relate, this may warrant a mental health trigger warning? There's self-talk that isn't very kind.

×××

The precursor to burnout is survival mode: a state in which the body doesn't allow itself to fully enter a state of rest, as it is perceived to be "unsafe" by the nervous system. Neurodivergent symptoms aren't always a cause for stress in and of themselves, but people displaying them quickly learn that symptomatic behaviour rubs others the wrong way, even if they lack the intuition to see why.

☁️ People don't like the way I behave.

×

This is compounded by miscommunication.

Say a divergent child says something that sounds neutral to them, but rude to everyone else. They might get reprimanded for hurting someone's feelings, but they don't see how what they said was hurtful. Say this child's requests for an explanation are seen as insolence instead of curiosity.

The adults might come away thinking the child needs more discipline. The child might come away knowing they did something wrong, but unsure as to what that was or how to avoid it in the future.

☁️ I can't trust myself to say good things, even if my intentions are good. If I say a bad thing, it's my fault even if I don't know why it's bad.

×

The more these situations crop up, the more the emotional takeaway morphs into low self-esteem and constant vigilance (to catch mistakes before they happen). As the child grows older and responsibilities increase, they are also faced with a more nuanced picture of society that they're already lagging behind - demanding more nuanced masking, which is already a separate workload - on top of battling those good old sensory issues.

To those who don't know what the fuss is about: you know when you have a fever and your skin is super sensitive? If you separate the tingliness from the discomfort, and then apply that discomfort to the rest of your senses, you'll get a pretty good idea of what sensory overwhelm is like. We don't all experience this the same way (for example, I'm generally fine with food textures but really sensitive to noise) or with the same frequency, but it tends to be both unpleasant and consistent.

These additional energy drains inevitably lead to feeling the effects of hard work without anywhere near the same results of our peers. The easiest explanation, and the assumption most uninformed make, is one of personal shortcomings. Laziness. Selfishness. A "bad attitude".

☁️ No matter how hard I try, it is not enough. I haven't earned my pain. I haven't earned my rest.

×

It's a frustrating experience, and all those feelings need to go somewhere. We learn skills such as silent crying to hide our "overreactions"; we use our anxiety as a driving force for productivity. Many disabled people have the dissociative method down pat. And then there's the assertive emotions.

Displaying anger out of bounds of the neurotypical context is a whole other kettle of fish. When the nervous system is cortisol city, things will boil over eventually. Any witness is likely to be unaware of the extent of the stressors that led up to this outburst, so it can seem to happen out of the blue. Plus, if the inciting incident appears insignificant to the onlooker, they'll probably think it's all a bit childish.

Say what you will about neurospicy social skills but we have a killer radar for cringe. Raise your hand if you smush down irritation on the regular. Better yet, raise your hand if you "never get angry".

☁️ My frustration is misplaced and out of proportion. If I show it, I lose the respect of people I care about.

×

Maybe we've been afraid to feel what we feel our whole lives, but there comes a point where something's got to give. We might even be making a conscious effort to get in touch with our emotions after years and years of ripping them down and sealing them away. It's a Pandora's box situation: once the seal is broken, there's no getting the horrors back inside.

That's usually the beginning of what is widely recognised as burnout. There is so much to sort through, life effectively gets put on hold, at least for those of us lucky enough not to crash and burn the moment we let go of the wheel.

Recovery isn't a matter of a little vacation time: it can take months or years, and it may not look like work but it very much is. The trauma runs deep and we have no choice but to get to the bottom of the trench if we don't want to be stuck in a permanent state of exhaustion. It can be isolating as there's not a lot of energy left for much else - overextend and your body will slap you back in line so fast your head will spin. And no, you do not get to choose what overextending yourself entails.

To anyone actually going through this, try not to keep yourself in check, at least when you're alone. Your psyche does not want to pretend anymore. Pretending has repercussions now.

×

It may come as a surprise that a lot of people don't take kindly to healing. A person in burnout recovery is (by necessity) less accessible, more self-centered, taking up more space and drawing new boundaries. Unmasking may reveal a person your friends don't understand like the contorted version of yourself they got to know. Furthermore - change, when seen as a threat, can cause people to lash out.

☁️ Healing is a punishable offense. It hurts those around me. They don't want me as I am, but they don't want me to change, either.

One of the things I've had difficulty accepting is that there are good, caring people in my life that don't deserve an explanation of what I'm going through. They might have a space in their hearts for the person they think that I am, but the capacity to truly get to know me isn't there, at least yet.

Once I'd been burned enough times, I made a decision to settle for nothing less than sincere interest as a prerequisite for any attempt to make myself understood. From there, it wasn't not far to the bittersweet realisation that the only person's permission I need to grow is my own.

×

I'm not sure how to wrap this up, which might mean future edits (there are always more edits), but the thought is complete enough to post.

I suppose there is no end to becoming one's own person, and even though the line between recovery and living can be blurry a lot of the time, existing with purpose is a decision each of us has to make.

I'm sending a telepathic hug to anyone who needs one right now. Take care of yourselves.

×××

The self-talk of some weird kid:

"People don't like the way I behave. I can't trust myself to say good things, even if my intentions are good. If I say a bad thing, it's my fault even if I don't know why it's bad. No matter how hard I try, it is not enough. I haven't earned my pain. I haven't earned my rest. My frustration is misplaced and out of proportion. If I show it, I lose the respect of people I care about. Healing is a punishable offense. It hurts those around me. They don't want me as I am, but they don't want me to change, either."

(I've included this depressing subconscious narrative because I think it's important to show how little unresolved rejections add up over time. One can put on a dazzling performance to meet social demands while believing all of that, and we desperately need community support that is informed and equipped to help them pick up the pieces once the show falls apart.)

"Everyone, yourself included, is doing their best in any given moment."

- The Expanded Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training Manual by Lane Pederson with Courtney Sidwell Pederson

Do not settle for half-loves, do not settle for someone who does not see the value in holding your heart. The people who walk away from you because the timing is not right are simply just the people who are not willing to put the right amount of time into you. Let that be your closure.

- a gentle reminder, bianca sparacino

Pride might be ending ending today, but never lose pride in yourself!

I just crave gentle love, gentle hands, gentle words, I just want someone to make me feel safe and calm. I want someone to make me feel it’s okay to open up it’s okay to feel anything and share anything with them. I want someone who makes life easier and doesn’t just let me survive but encourages me to live to the fullest. I want someone i can curl up in and cry when i want to. Someone who will put faith in me and make me more confident and proud make me accept myself.

🖤