jadedwench [they/them]

Today I was taking meds and immediately could not remember if I had taken Adderall yet, so I waited it out. I was pretty sure I hadn’t, but I also didn’t want to mess up. When it turned 2pm and I had not even remotely started doing anything useful, that answered my question…

Pill organizers don’t help and I need to visually see how many pills are left so I can put in a refill right away. I definitely go on the side of caution when going through all of the pills each morning. I try to make a pile first, but I will also take one or two of them while sorting and not notice. I have to break most of my pills, so I know how each one tastes, the texture, etc. This helps fix mistakes if my brain really doesn’t want to cooperate, with last resort of waiting if it is something really bad if I take double.

• Puts on jeans
• oh wait, I finished knitting that leg warmer, let’s wash it for blocking
• hmm, maybe I will let it dry and mould to my leg while I am working
• removes jeans and puts on long sweater as shorts are nowhere to be found
• watch random YouTube
• ugh, it is sliding down and I need to make the icord
• how do I make an icord again? Which yarn should I use?
• I can’t find that one specific needle size even though it doesn’t matter
• give up and start it
• shouldn’t I be working?
• get annoyed by teams messages and turn it off
• find different video and forget to continue icord
• stare blankly at work and go back to knitting
• what was I doing again?
• fuck, I really need to do work. What time is it?
• fuck. I definitely didn’t take my meds.

Insert other moments of confusion, stimming, and failures as needed.

Those feels. I hate all the time I “waste” due to indecision or distractions, but I still have to feel like I had free time or I will be depressed. It is even worse when things like work or other external factors that I did NOT plan for get in the way. Dopamine…where art thou?

This is why I get frustrated if I have to work late. I still need 4 hours or so of downtime, which means that if I am up until 1-2am and can’t wake up in time for the stupid morning standup, too damn bad. I am privileged that I can do that sometimes, but I have also worked 12-14 hour days for weeks on end at other jobs and even eating seemed like a waste of time.

PS: I do know that you have hunger issues Stamets. If you were in my area, I would feed the hell out of you.

They would not have liked the Humans vs Zombies events.

Same. I used the little picture widget to cycle adorable animal pictures all day on my home screen. The one little thing that gave me joy, fucking ruined by corporations. While I don’t have a widget anymore, I at least have someplace I can talk for 5 minutes and have someone listen.

Nothing wrong with getting another assessment, especially if everything was diagnosed at once, or out of order, if that makes sense? Sometimes it takes a bit of treatment/meds to detangle the bin of labels.

At the end of the day, if you can get the support you need and any documentation for the harpies, you are already ahead. Now, getting good support? That costs extra with a side of doubt, some F, and +2 to anxiety.

Pretty much. Beta blockers help the jitters and at least take the anxiety down a couple notches. No idea if I get to add autism to the list, but I wouldn’t be particularly surprised. There is a lot of overlap between the two.

My extra unwanted friend is bipolar disorder type 2. It was great when they put me on Citalopram without so much as a checkup at University. I cut myself off after about a year. Fast forward a few years after to find out that is a very bad idea to give to people who have BPD, not that the university knew what was wrong with me…

You assume I check my email.

Thankfully I suck at that, but holy crap it is prevelent in this industry. The alcohol abuse is cray. Doesn’t help when you travel constantly. I don’t travel much anymore, but the people who spend 90+% of the year in the field, while having a family, are fundamentally broken. Fun to party once in a while, but when they do this shit multiple times a week, I don’t understand.

Does Lua rank far below python for you? I have so much rage against it. At least with Python I don’t have to do a bunch of steps to just get it to do something. May take me a while to get through bad Python code, but Lua makes my eyes bleed and I begin to regret my life choices in trying to understand wtf these people wrote.

laughs in PLC

I think once my doctor started charging me money for being late or missing the appointment entirely, the consequences were enough to overcome. The number of times though for this exact scenario… Yeah, been there, done that. Timers, timers, and more timers.

No idea if it will help, as I am going to try it too, but we may need to put our keys and wallet in the good place before going to sleep when we have important things the next day. The only way I ever get to the airport on time is to:

1. Pack early (try…)
2. Put all electronics in a pile on or near luggage/backpack, charging
3. Put all the other extremely important shit on top as well. Keys, wallet, etc.
4. Lay out my clothes for tomorrow, so I just have to wake up and put them on.
5. Stress about missing my flight and sleep like shit.

The only other thing that helps me is Tile, so I can at least narrow down which room my keys or wallet is in. The little speaker can get kind of damaged on the wallet one, but the BT is fine.

The worst is trying to explain at how necessary the medication is. Having to explain that I cannot work without it

This explains so much. Mine did the same and when it became too expensive to fix, I had to move on. The rust ate it alive and I had to replace the battery every year until I bought a more expensive battery and that one lasted 2-3ish. A lot of the plastic trim and bits around the license plate to hold the light became brittle and broke. It did not like winter temperatures at all.

My understanding though (US) is the DEA limits the raw ingredient supply with no regard to the demand by patients. The drug manufacturers get what they get whenever the DEA decides they are allowed to have it.

It sucks having the government decide whether I get my medication each month. It sucks having to submit to drug tests to prove I am taking my meds and not hoarding/selling them. I have a giant stack of paperwork from formal testing I had, which I had to pay for out of pocket because insurance doesn’t cover it. It was something like 600-800 dollars. That is enough dammit. I shouldn’t have to live in fear that my medication will be taken away or refilled late because I can’t even request my refill until the last minute.

My nails are too thin to get long enough to bite consistently, but I would wrap my hand around my wrist and squeeze when anxious. I would have finger bruises on my wrists. Nail polish I just sit there and peel off. Fake nails will be ripped off in 2-3 days, no matter how much it damages my nails, and I also play(ed) string instruments. I still squeeze my wrists sometimes, but I have to be really really stressed out.

As someone on Adderall instead, is it really like that? There is one generic manufacturer, Activis, that I refuse to accept from the pharmacy as I feel like I am tweaking out the entire day and falling apart. Only time I ever refused to finish the bottle and begged the pharmacy to replace it, which they were unable to do.

The worst is Discord. It doesn’t show up in search engines and somehow you have to know that is where you are “supposed” to go for help. Privacy issues aside, I am fine with discord for playing games with friends or big conventions/LAN parties, but I don’t understand why anyone would use it as a forum.

I tried to make them work, but having pill bottles in one place and then the organizer separate just made it too stressful. I am not home every day, so having one little bag with it all just helps. The organizer got a little beat up in my backpack. I do have a little metal keychain pill holder that I put 2-3 days of pills in sometimes.

I also have a couple meds that are “as needed” or for emergencies. The big one is needing to keep an eye on the date and exact counts of how much Adderall is left. I just went through the unfortunate experience of not having meds for 3-4 days and I was a mess. It wasn’t even my fault…