Hey lovelies

Apologies that we're struggling to interact here or other places like Discord

Whilst ADHD med titration is realistically going about as well as possible and is overall highly positive, it's not being done in a vaccum.

There are sadly other life factors that are making us struggle to have the mental bandwidth or desire to be more social

Due to these factors, we're prioritising the wellbeing of us, our wife, and our cattens over others. We're aware that this is selfish, but we can't do this and help everyone else right now.

You can still reach us in theory via Discord, but we may take several days (up to a week sometimes) to send a basic response.

If you have us on Signal, Matrix, or Delta Chat, we'll likely respond a bit sooner, but please expect us to be slow to respond and limited in capacity.

Sorry that we're not more capable and resilient

I thought today might be a good random day to share with you some insights from me, a person with anxiety based around perfectionism, and social anxiety, who is very fed up of a certain widespread habit.

Now, let me put a disclaimer here: Every person is "wired" in a different way. For some people this works, no matter the circumstances or who says it. For some people - including some with mental health issues - it might be a vital habit to develop to deal with stuff, as long as they're the ones doing it themselves, not someone else demanding things.

It's great if this is you, more power to you.

There are also situations where the fun thing is directly tied to a chore, an annoying thing or something you might despise or be afraid of. Pointing that out is merely describing a problem that needs a solution before you can do a good thing. In most public pools in my country you do need a bathing suit to enter it, so there's not really a way around getting a bathing suit by whatever means for example (unless you're into bathing nude and plan to go to a place suitable for this.)

I do not mean this.

I do mean this whole thing that works for training a dog and that many people use as an attempt to bribe a child (or friend or relative) into doing their school homework for example. This "if you want to do (fun thing), do (negative/boring/exhausting/annoying/maybe even traumatizing/humiliating) thing first." This idea of having to earn your ability to experience anything positive that would give you some piece of mind, help you destress and maybe even give energy to do the thing you've been avoiding or simply didn't have time to do so yet. These two tasks are usually not related.

I hate it. It's just another piece of bullshit that undermines the idea that your "worth" is measured by your achievements and your labor, your work - or lack thereof. Despite the fact that the fun thing might delay the other, yes, but also give you strength to do it in the first place, if it helps you recharge your inner batteries and boost your confidence in yourself, you absolutely have to do this last.

Now, for many people this is a "yeah whatever", a nothingburger. Maybe you're rolling your eyes and think I'm just some alarmist wanting attention by blowing a small issue out of proportion.

Congratulations to having a somewhat well maintained mental health, being neurotypical, or have battles to fight that are entirely unrelated to this! I'm happy for you.

Not everyone is like you though, unfortunately. And if you have anxiety, crippling self-doubt, a neurodiversity that makes you struggle with keeping track of things, you don't need someone tying one thing that might give you some peace of mind to the things you weren't able to do yet for whatever reason.

And yes, this includes children who might not have these issues (yet). Based on unscientific anecdotal personal "evidence" I'd even argue this might be one of the many sparks leading to mental health issues as an adult, depending on the circumstances.

I don't know a lot about raising a child, I don't have one nor am I planning to change that. I could imagine making the chore/homework/housework/whatever in itself a nicer experience would do wonders, adding some intrinsic motivation to it. (Not a lot of fun about doing laundry or algebra, but you could listen to nice music while doing it, for example, or do it together with e.g. the parent or a school mate.)

However, I know this "business before pleasure" idea usually manages to sour both things to me, making me scared/avoident of the unpleasent things even more and "tainting" the thing I was hoping I could do to relax or distract me from my issues. In the end it usually results in me being incredibly frustrated and feeling like a piece of shit, even if I Did The Thing, and having no desire whatsoever to do the fun thing anymore, might even hate this for a little while as well. Which leads to me having one less thing I could use to cope with stuff, which I already never had a lot of to begin with in my life for various reasons, like restrictions based on disabilities or a lack of money in a capitalist society.

And having Done The Thing in the end is not making up for it.

(Boosts are ok, it's supposed to offer some maybe uncommon perspective for learning purposes, but please refrain from unsolicited advice or assumptions about what I may or may not have tried or what sparked this. I have been wanting to write about this for some time but just didn't really know how to phrase things.)