by far my most shared, purchased, printed, interacted with zine, i've grown to be more and more happy with it as it started so many conversations and interactions and brought me closer to people 🫶

find the free pdf here, i'd love if you tell me if you download it bc the platform doesn't let me know when people get the free version but i like knowing my little zine is going to new homes 🥹

this zine also exists in french and has a sequel "i feel like shit+the world is on fire" find it in another post soon or on the same link

always want to hear more ways people try to fix feeling like shit so feel free to share that too aaaaa

Maybe this therapy shit is working

Made me wheeze. Adopting this tag into my brain, thank you

Neurodivergent trauma often includes a fear of succeeding.

And that's because when you succeed, even once, even slightly, even if it's a total fluke, even if you completely burned yourself out in order to do it, even if it only worked under specific circumstances, people use that as evidence that your struggles vanished.

Neurodivergent

trauma often includes a

fear of succeeding.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Literally every single Neuroscience guy I listen to on audiobooks and podcasts: Multitasking is a lie. You are not more efficient. You're just rapidly switching between tasks and doing all of them slower but your brain is tricking itself into thinking it's more efficient because you get a little dopamine reward when you activate the 'change task' neurons. And you're burning up way more glucose in the process, leaving you more tired with less done. STOP MULTITASKING. JUST DO ONE THING. PLEASE IT'S ONLY WORSENING YOUR ATTENTION SPAN. WE'RE BEGGING YOU, PLEA--

My ADHD: Don't listen to them, babydoll. You are sooooooo efficient and attractive. Whoop. You got an email. Whoop you got a text. Whoop you got a blog ask. WOW look at all the tabs open on this window. Do you even remember what they're all for? Better look through them and close the ones you're not using because you're soooo sexy and efficient. Whoop, email again.

this is gonna sound like a shitpost but the best advice i have if youre consistently coming off wrong is to start talking like an elcor

you will feel like a dumdum at first, but once you get used to it youll realize that telling people what kind of thing you're about to say ahead of time flattens their anxiety a huge amount

ive been starting every question with "question:" for awhile now and i almost never get people reading too much into what i mean anymore

it seems super dumb, but "what are your plans tomorrow?" gets people asking me what i have planned despite me obviously being in the process of figuring that out, whereas "question: what are your plans tomorrow?" gets me a quick rundown of their schedule, followed by "why?"

it also makes it really easy to work tone indicators into your verbal speech. if you're always saying "question: [your question here]?" then no one blinks when you say "genuine question: [question that could read as sarcastic]?"

it also gets you out of your own way for any types of things you struggle to say. "can you make sure to do the dishes before you go to bed?" feels like an argument waiting to happen, but "request: can you make sure to do the dishes before you go to bed?" gets the words flowing on a neutral word while making it clear that you're not looking for a fight

so yeah. suggestion: talk like an elcor

i said "suggestion for you if you havent thought of it:" today so im reblogging this

Useful addition: "this is not a guilt trip or moral judgement, just checking facts: have you done the dishes".

Or "Just checking if I need to, have you done the dishes today"

Or "please do the dishes, Im not upset I just need a plate".

Being clear about your intentions this way also heads off RSD or trauma-type anxiety, guilt, frustration, demand-avoidance, fear, etc.

Another phrasing useful for when you are emotional is "Im definitely frustrated, but Im not frustrated at you because I know you're doing your best."

Of course it only really works if you genuinely mean it.

you get me

Genuine delight: elcor my beloved

For anyone who needs it. Use in good health.

Imagine if you met someone who can't eat watermelon. Not that they're allergic or unable somehow, but they just haven't figured out how to do that. So you're like "what the hell do you mean? it works just like eating anything else, you open your mouth, sink your teeth in, take a bite and chew. If you can bite, chew and swallow, you should be able to eat a watermelon."

And they agree that yes, they do know how to eat, in theory. The problem is the watermelon. Surely, if they figured out where to start, they'd figure out how to do it, but they have no clue how to get started with it.

This goes back and forth. No, it's not an emotional issue, they're not afraid of the watermelon. They can eat any other fruit, other sweet things, and other watery things ("it's watery?" they ask you). Is it the colour? Do they have a problem eating things that are green on the outside and red on the inside?

"It's red on the inside?"

Wait, they've never seen the inside? At this point you have to ask them how, exactly, they eat the watermelon. So to demonstrate, they take a whole, round, uncut watermelon, and try to bite straight into it. Even if they could bite through the crust, there's no way to get human jaws around it.

"Oh, you're supposed to cut it first. You cut the crust open and only chew through the insides."

And they had no idea. All their life this person has had no idea how to eat a watermelon, despite of being told again and again and again that it's easy, it's ridiculous to struggle with something so simple, there's no way that someone just can't eat a watermelon, how can you even mange to be bad at something as fucking simple as eating watermelon.

If someone can't do something after being repeatedly told to "just do it", there might be some key component missing that one side has no idea about, and the other side assumed was so obvious it goes without mention.

Yep.

https://drmaciver.substack.com/p/how-to-do-everything had a nice list of additional examples like this, with (non-)obvious major insights with regard to opening stitched bags, cleaning your bathroom floor, using a search engine, catching a ball, pinging somebody, proving a theorem, playing sudoku, passing as “normal”, improving your writing, generating novel ideas, and solving your problem.

My fiance played the clarinet when he was in school. When he was first learning to play, he rented an instrument from the school to learn on. He was the last chair clarinet, had been for years, because he could not make notes that required the register key. For years, they kept making him do embrature exercises and he started to get a few notes, with lots of effort. Eventually he had to get private lessons to stay in band.

Every time he tells me this story, his frustration by this point in the story, years later, is evident. He still sounds frustrated by it, despite all the time that passed. Teachers had been giving him crap for years because he hadn't been making much progress with the instrument.

When he got to the private instructor, she acknowledged his frustration, and asked him to try to play for her. He did, and she saw all he was doing. She then did something no one else had done before. She asked him to put his mouthpiece on a different clarinet and try to play the same notes. Like magic, it worked. She looked at the clarinet he had been using and found that the school's clarinet needed it's pads replaced.

He went from last chair to first chair nearly overnight, having been taught far more techniques than typically taught at that age just to overcome the broken instrument preventing him from making noise.

Sometimes you don't need to brute force a problem. Sometimes your clarinet is just broken.

Not quite sure why the clarinet addition got me crying, but here you go people: just in case, let's get you some new pads.

sorry for being weird and evasive. i was raised to believe that having wants and needs was a moral failing

Well obviously I can’t have chronic fatigue, that’s a real problem for real disabled people that’s diagnosed by doctors probably. Clearly I just have some sort of perpetual exhaustion issue, that is also almost certainly my fault somehow

sorry for the delay in responding to your message. I was walking around the house with unclear intentions

incredible how much housework you can get done if you take a chance and believe in yourself and also have fifteen other much more pressing responsibilities

With the power of adhd you can do two halves of different chores and then sit down again instead of finishing either 👍

This may be mistaken for half-assing it but you would be wrong. I am whole-assing but I've distributed my ass across multiple tasks and didn't finish anything. But. Multiple chores are more done than they were before. Take it or leave it

i know it's hard. but i so firmly believe the strongest antidote to loneliness is reaching out first. and continuing to reach out. again and again and again. excise any scrap of shame you hold about being the person who texts first or pitches the plan or asks to get lunch. everyone is tired and busy and struggling. and afraid of feeling unwanted and unimportant. don't let the people you love feel that way. reach out first. don't be a ghost in your own life.

I believe there is a second piece to it, though, which is that you must also willing to listen for a response on the other person's timeline.

Yes, it is so, so important to learn how to reach out.

You must also learn how to ask without expectation. (How to let people back in when they reach to you.)

When you message someone "hey let's meet up soon", and they don't respond for a few weeks, when that person DOES reply, you have to be ready to hear that without resenting the time it took them to respond.

Chances are good that they didn't reply for the same reasons you struggled to start the conversation.

There are so many reasons why a response might be slow that are in no way a reflection of how much someone may care for you.

(The concept of removing the expectations for time also applies to you as well.)

You *ARE* allowed to go back to that text from - even *months* ago, and reply to it.

You are not required to justify or perform penance.

Generally speaking? Your friends would much rather have your presence than your guilt from not replying.

(And! you can tell them all about what's been keeping you busy once the conversation has started up again.)

You are seeking connection with people you care about. Let it be that simple.

"I've been thinking of you! Are you still free to catch up sometime?"

[on the verge of having a complete breakdown] i need to make some kind of list or perhaps sort things into categories

Not to go "if you have ADHD just go for a run" or anything, but I am so serious if you have ADHD you should regularly go outside, no headphones no phone no nothing and just stand and observe for a while until you've had enough. Not until you get bored, until you've had enough. Drink your coffee without watching tiktok. Have a bath without music. Turn down the volume in your headphones. I cannot overstate how much learning to be bored is cruicial with ADHD. Life is not just about pleasure, no matter what your dysregulated dopamine system thinks, and when you teach your brain to be okay with being bored, then boring tasks stop feeling like torture. By letting yourself be bored you are yoinking your system out of the high/low binary and allow for the highs to feel like actual highs and not just anything that isn't low. I am so serious go literally touch grass. Listen to the sounds in your flat. Stimulate your body the way it was designed. It lowers anxiety and makes you feel like you're real and best of all it's completely free

I really wish more ADHD mental health care told you WHY things like this matter to our quality of life.

The Hyperactivity in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is NOT about being physically hyperactive, it's about having a "hyperactive central nervous system" because it's a form of inheritable dysautonomia. The problem with disautonomia, especially the ADHD kind, is that it makes boredom flag to your nervous system as a THREAT, triggering hyperactive and maladaptive central nervous system processes like fight or flight.

But dysautonomia kills you that way. Literally, part of the reason our average life spand increase on stimulents is that it helps manage risk-taking impulsivity that can get us killed by accident, but the other part is that stimulents can regulate a hyperactive CNS such that it is functionally (while impacted by the stimulent) NOT dysregulated anymore. And PHYSIOLOGICALLY that is essential because the physical outcomes of dysautonomia can reduce your life span by YEARS if not decades through self-perpetuating hypervigelence, endocrine disruption, and adrenal fatigue.

So when the ADHD brain goes stimulation-seeking and a doctor tells you to practice mindfulness, it feels like being told "hey go stand in a functioning boiler until you can stop thinking" rather than WHAT IT IS which is the process of re-teaching your body what is and isn't safe.

Standing outside making mindful, non-interpretive/moralized observation of the world helps your brain and body re-acclimate to the idea that absence of that frantic "busy" feeling isn't a threat or a risk to your safety, and gradually reduces the level of distress that just hanging out somewhere triggers for you.

Learning WHY this stuff was being suggested and understanding what it was actually supposed to do went a long way towards changing my relationship with my ADHD. I am FAR more functional now, far less prone to shame spirals and rejection sensitivity, hell, I can **sit physically still for near on an hour at a time** now without feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin.

So yeah. Go outside. Let the world narrow around you and take deep breaths until it stops feeling claustrophobic or like you need to climb walls. Learn how to let little sensations become big ones like the way the heat of the sun on your skin starts as a gentle warming and be omes a unique collection of sensory moments depending on how it lands on you. Listen for sounds under sounds and let them fade in and out as you move your focus from one sound to the next. Enjoy. Move on. Rinse and repeat.

When you no longer feel like the world is actively killing you, it's a lot easier to navigate it.

S++ tier addition to the post, thank you tumblr user butts bouncing on the beltway

I don't think it's necessarily plastic to learn how to fake laugh at bad or corny jokes I think it's legitimately a skill worth developing to make life a little nicer at work like last night my older coworkers were all doing the "Alright see you guys next year!" joke and I don't want the last thing they saw that year to be someone rolling their eyes

Yeah, sometimes it's just the right thing to do to exchange an attempt at simple connection with a positive response. It's less about the joke itself and more performing simple niceties and being able to just get along with people you work with even if its not sincerely funny or gonna make you best friends is just good etiquette, really.