you know when you read a piece of writing so effortless, so graceful and unpretentious that you are both a) thrilled to the point that you have to put it down and walk in a quick circle to make it last longer but also b) PHYSICALLY INCAPACITATED with snarling jealousy and rage
Tag: big fat fucking gpoy
Does anyone else get really caught up on the small details in their writing? Like you can be really good at writing situations and feelings and characters, but you get to a point when you’re writing something small like what they’re making for dinner and before you know it, you’re googling recipes with tomatoes because you think the scene won’t be convincing unless you know the cooking time and temp??
And then you use like, 5% of it in your ACTUAL writing?
this. my life. Oh god.
Does anyone else just get like really stubbornly indifferent towards a popular character? Like you don’t feel hateful but you feel yourself giving less fucks and falling deeper into fuck deficit every time people gush about how great they are and its kinda like being at a party where everyone else is having a good time and you’re awkwardly standing in the corner with the underappreciated dog.
Currently. Always.
Combeferre with ADHD
Combeferre with a completely rubbish working memory who can tell you about the anatomy of moths in exhaustive detail but has to stop and think hard before he can say what he had for breakfast and needs to write down all homework assignments and other responsibilities immediately or risk forgetting them entirely.
Combeferre hyperfocusing on whatever book he’s reading and being impervious to outside distraction.
Combeferre having days when he can’t focus on anything at all and roaming through the streets because he can’t sit still and keeps noticing every single distraction around him when he tries to get anything done.
Combeferre toying with anything he can find to keep his hands busy so that he can concentrate on other things.
Combeferre with a complete inability to keep his room neat and organized.
Combeferre who got through school as a kid by being brilliant and now doesn’t know how to study and is having to cram the knowledge into his brain and feeling like a failure because he’s doing fine in his classes but he could be doing so much better if he just tried harder.
(Modern AU Combeferre finally getting an explanation for what’s wrong and it’s like a weight is lifted off his shoulders because it all makes sense now.)
#Combeferre did u finish that book u borrowed from me #oh I…………… started it but then I found this really cheap copy of grays anatomy….. #and what I’m saying is I ended up with Melville somehow and I’m sorry #Combeferre I thought we were going to watch project runway #oh I’m just…………….. writing a portfolio of letters to my representatives… is it Friday?? #I support this #he is largely inattentive #but will experience manic days #where he does PROJECTS #and loses all sense of time #and his keys #he’s always losing his keys #or his hat #or something #Combeferre more like king of library fines #Combeferre more like he’s very good in the kitchen but forgets an ingredient 30% of the time (via adhdronanlynch)
Combeferre with ADHD
Combeferre with a completely rubbish working memory who can tell you about the anatomy of moths in exhaustive detail but has to stop and think hard before he can say what he had for breakfast and needs to write down all homework assignments and other responsibilities immediately or risk forgetting them entirely.
Combeferre hyperfocusing on whatever book he’s reading and being impervious to outside distraction.
Combeferre having days when he can’t focus on anything at all and roaming through the streets because he can’t sit still and keeps noticing every single distraction around him when he tries to get anything done.
Combeferre toying with anything he can find to keep his hands busy so that he can concentrate on other things.
Combeferre with a complete inability to keep his room neat and organized.
Combeferre who got through school as a kid by being brilliant and now doesn’t know how to study and is having to cram the knowledge into his brain and feeling like a failure because he’s doing fine in his classes but he could be doing so much better if he just tried harder.
(Modern AU Combeferre finally getting an explanation for what’s wrong and it’s like a weight is lifted off his shoulders because it all makes sense now.)
me: *can’t handle the stress and demands of school*
also me: *can’t function properly without the structure school gives my life*
executive dysfunction
what you say: go get a glass of water when you’re thirsty
what i hear: recognize your body’s signs of thirst before you’re extremely dehydrated, somehow get up in the middle of your current task before you forget that you’re thirsty, leave your room, walk down the hall, go into the kitchen, find the cupboard, choose a cup, put water in the cup, and go back down to your room. do all of this without forgetting what you’re doing in the middle of the process and without getting distracted, keeping everything in your working memory and not getting stalled between any of the steps. then, smoothly resume the task where you left off (which requires remembering what you were doing before), and sip from the glass periodically until it is gone or you are no longer thirsty (which requires remembering that the water is there and repeatedly interrupting yourself to get a sip, while monitoring your body’s signals). i expect you to do this multiple times every day, automatically, on a fixed schedule that aligns with your body’s needs
(#nope#I thought so too#but what you should hear is ”just carry a bottle of water with you everywhere you go”#do it enough and even at home you’ll find yourself reaching for it as a fidget thing#ADHD tips!!!!! via @thehumantrampoline)
It’s so relieving that non-fandom people will always assume I’m texting my boyfriend when I smile at my phone. They will never, ever, in a million years entertain the possibility that I’m reading an independently published erotic novel dealing with Victor Hugo’s characters and smiling about it.
Thing #1 that frustrates me about ADHD/Executive Dysfunction advice:
“Oh, you have a mental/neurological issue that makes it difficult for you to be organized, follow routines, stick with systems, maintain a schedule, do your work, etc.? Well, what you need to do is GET ORGANIZED! Schedule everything! Find a system and stick with it! Maintain a schedule! Do your work as it comes in!”It’s like that Allie Brosh comic where her fish are dead, and everyone’s offering to help find them, or advice like “feed them!” Or “make puppets out of them!” And she says, “No, see, that solution is for a different problem than the one I have.”
Yes, I would love to do those things! I have tried to do those things! I am still trying to do those things! But it’s like that post about how you’re going through an invisible obstacle course, and what looks like a block to everyone else seems like a wall to you. Instead of saying, “it’s a block! Go around!” It would be much more useful to hand me a bag of flour so I can see the obstacles for myself and how to get around them.
I keep looking for something I can do. I can’t maintain an agenda- closest I can do is lot appointments into Google Calendar. I can’t use to-do lists- they overwhelm and freak me out and I end up doing less than before. Breaking down a task into a bunch of tiny pieces should work in theory, but again, freaks me out, and I usually end up spending an hour planning and then I never actually do. I can’t set deadlines for myself. Whatever part of the brain allows other people to say, “yes, it’s due on the 29th, but I want to be done on the 25th” just doesn’t work. I can’t make my brain think something needs to be done until the last minute. This is especially bad in classes where everything is due at the end of the semester. I end up doing what I just did, and having to do two whole classes worth of work in two days. Oddly, once that level of desperation kicks in, I’m capable of sitting down and pounding through the material- but for some reason, I can’t tap into that level of focus without a short, urgent, important deadline. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out.
Thing #2 that bugs me about all self help: Don’t wait for motivation! Just do it!
I think my definition of “motivation” is different from the usual. Most people see “motivation” as meaning something like “wanting to do something, looking forward to doing something, doing the thing with energy and happiness because it is the thing you want to do.”
My definition is closer to “having enough willpower to make myself do the thing despite everything in my brain begging me to go watch Netflix instead.” So when people say, “you don’t need motivation!” What I hear is “everyone else seems to have this source of willpower they can eventually learn to tap into that just doesn’t exist for me.” My best technique for doing stuff is having other people make me do it. Which freaks out my social anxiety because then I feel like I’m intruding on their time to make them help me with mine.
The thing is, I’m not lazy. If I were just lazy this would all be easier to cope with. I WANT to be doing things, I WANT to be successful, I WANT to be productive. I even try, really hard, and the effort that exhausts me seems to be so much lower than the typical threshold. But every time I try to be as productive as I want to be, I burn out in a couple days.
I am on the verge of tears because this is everything that frustrates me about my own ADHD. Every word of this reflects my experience.
i’m so bad today i can only read every fifth sentence and it STILL hits me in the gut. well expressed.
my executive dysfunction lately has been so bad i can’t even work on my hobbies. i can’t even stim right. one of my favorite stims is to lay out a textile work in progress and play with the pieces, rearranging them and finishing their edges and doing all the fiddlybits. lately, even though i have a nice clean worktable and my quilt pieces all laid out by color, i have managed to iron a grand total of like… 6 of them. in three days. i like ironing quilt pieces. it’s satisfying to me. but it just… doesn’t seem to be happening.
people who’ve never experienced executive dysfunction seem to think our disability only applies to things that are hard or unfun, and therefore suspect we’re just making excuses not to do stuff we don’t want to do. but it’s not like that. i have trouble doing stuff i enjoy doing. i have trouble doing stuff i have to do to live, like eating. sometimes the stuff i get distracted into doing is less fun than the thing i was trying to do – plenty of times i go to get food and get distracted and fold laundry instead. because folding laundry is a routine, it’s an organizing task, which takes less executive function than making food, which requires making a lot of little decisions and judgement calls based on what’s in the fridge, what dishes are clean, etc.
if you had something wrong with your brain that forced you to fold laundry when you wanted a sandwich, wouldn’t you call that a real disability?
…..well this all sounds painfully, painfully familiar