LGBTAI+ 55: AKA The Page We'll Get to if I Don't Make a New One

[Jeff the Green]

What do you think?

I'm one of the people it was originally designed for, and I appreciate it being used by able-bodied people. Anything that gets people thinking about energy as a resource that must be budgeted just like money or time, and of which some people have a lot more than others and/or must spend more to accomplish the same things makes my life easier.

[Anarion]

What do you think?

Healthy people shouldn't go on about spoons since it dilutes and confuses the matter when it's not well established enough to be mucked about with like that.

I disagree with Coidzor. I think everyone has spoons. I'm perfectly healthy, but I still have days where I've pushed myself too far. It resonates at the moment because yesterday was such a day. I worked an extra three hours to finish something, did a marathon gaming session with some friends, didn't make dinner until midnight, tried to stay up to watch a League of Legends competition, then tried to get ready for bed but fell asleep as I was in the process of putting my pajamas on. I literally couldn't move and getting up to brush my teeth was completely out of the question.

Now, that happened to me because I tried to throw in everything I wanted on a very busy day and I know there are other people whose limits are much lower than mine. But just because some people have really high limits doesn't mean those limits don't exist. And if you push someone hard enough, say you make them work a 12 hour day every day for weeks, they're going to start drawing down from the future and find themselves running out of spoons.

[golentan]

I disagree with Coidzor. I think everyone has spoons. I'm perfectly healthy, but I still have days where I've pushed myself too far. It resonates at the moment because yesterday was such a day. I worked an extra three hours to finish something, did a marathon gaming session with some friends, didn't make dinner until midnight, tried to stay up to watch a League of Legends competition, then tried to get ready for bed but fell asleep as I was in the process of putting my pajamas on. I literally couldn't move and getting up to brush my teeth was completely out of the question.

Now, that happened to me because I tried to throw in everything I wanted on a very busy day and I know there are other people whose limits are much lower than mine. But just because some people have really high limits doesn't mean those limits don't exist. And if you push someone hard enough, say you make them work a 12 hour day every day for weeks, they're going to start drawing down from the future and find themselves running out of spoons.

One of my problems is that I have a variable number of spoons, and I usually don't know how many until I run out or am close to doing so. Some days I can push myself just fine, other days I can barely get out of bed without precipitating a nervous or psychotic reaction...

[Jormengand]

See, I get about 3 spoons maximum and 1 spoon per day, but I don't have to use a spoon on anything unless I want to do it actually well, but the catch is that I lose about a quarter of my efficiency for each spoon I'm missing. Oh, and sometimes spending a spoon doesn't work, sometimes I do it accidentally, and other people are allowed to spend them for me.

[SiuiS]

I disagree with Coidzor. I think everyone has spoons. I'm perfectly healthy, but I still have days where I've pushed myself too far. It resonates at the moment because yesterday was such a day. I worked an extra three hours to finish something, did a marathon gaming session with some friends, didn't make dinner until midnight, tried to stay up to watch a League of Legends competition, then tried to get ready for bed but fell asleep as I was in the process of putting my pajamas on. I literally couldn't move and getting up to brush my teeth was completely out of the question.

Now, that happened to me because I tried to throw in everything I wanted on a very busy day and I know there are other people whose limits are much lower than mine. But just because some people have really high limits doesn't mean those limits don't exist. And if you push someone hard enough, say you make them work a 12 hour day every day for weeks, they're going to start drawing down from the future and find themselves running out of spoons.

This is what our little social circle tends to mean by "cannot brain today", too.

This is a simplified version of the thing that causes me anxiety; it's only possessed of two changes. One, spoon allotment is per six hours, not per day, and two, only as long as a recharge time is given; some things actively replenish spoons as they deplete them. The convoluted math involved tends to send me into a weeklong panic as I try to balance my mental accounts so I'm not gonna get too involved in thinking about it though.

This is why charlotte worked so well for me, and why I'm still beating that dead horse, though. That was one of the games which replenished my energy, rather than depleting it. I'm still trying to lock down what things in games make them exciting enough to energize me when I'm low. That will be a hell of a discovery...

One of my problems is that I have a variable number of spoons, and I usually don't know how many until I run out or am close to doing so. Some days I can push myself just fine, other days I can barely get out of bed without precipitating a nervous or psychotic reaction...

I'm sorry. It's a silly question, but, does eating help?

[Lissou]

I'm personally used to talking about batteries, because mine can be charged up sometimes, so it works better for me, and because spoons are presumably all around similar sizes while batteries use percents of depletion, which allows for a bigger range. I guess you would get the same result by starting with a hundred spoons but then most things would cost dozens of them, and spoons seem to me to work more on a "about one spoon per thing although sometimes more".

But I do think the spoon version works for a lot of people. Probably not on a day-to-day basis if you're completely healthy and able-bodies but on a day when you are sick and, say, had to work 16 hours the previous day due to having two jobs, you may end up in a situation similar to some other people's average day. As long as you remember that the exception for you is the rule for others (rather than it always being the exception for everyone) I think the metaphor serves its purpose.

[Coidzor]

I disagree with Coidzor. I think everyone has spoons. I'm perfectly healthy, but I still have days where I've pushed myself too far. It resonates at the moment because yesterday was such a day. I worked an extra three hours to finish something, did a marathon gaming session with some friends, didn't make dinner until midnight, tried to stay up to watch a League of Legends competition, then tried to get ready for bed but fell asleep as I was in the process of putting my pajamas on. I literally couldn't move and getting up to brush my teeth was completely out of the question.

Dropping from physical exhaustion and neglect is not really the same thing as running out of spoons, though, since they're more about invisible illnesses than about people with physical disabilities or medical conditions where their physical bodies can't perform or simply running out of steam from overwork or being undernourished.

[golentan]

I still think it's a case of healthy people just having a higher spoon tally than some of us.

[noparlpf]

Dropping from physical exhaustion and neglect is not really the same thing as running out of spoons, though, since they're more about invisible illnesses than about people with physical disabilities or medical conditions where their physical bodies can't perform or simply running out of steam from overwork or being undernourished.

"Burnout" seems to be pretty similar to chronic depression, except it happens to a normally healthy person who's overworked for too long and I think it can usually go away with treatment/lifestyle changes. So I guess it's basically a normal person (say they have a thousand spoons, a thousand is a lot) borrowing against tomorrow's spoons for too long so they run out for a while and have to restock. Whereas somebody with chronic depression is always running with like, a dozen or two spoons and can't really restock.

[SiuiS]

I still think it's a case of healthy people just having a higher spoon tally than some of us.

And often, a lower draw. Things just don't always cost normal folks.

[Lycunadari]

On another random note, I'm starting to wonder what I'd look like with pink hair. Because I'm odd like that. Given that I currently look like this, who thinks I'd look good?

Yes I would try it out with something I could get out easily first. Just want some people to tell me I'm cute opinions.

I think pink hair would make you even cuter~

Apparently saying trans women are women now makes me a lesbophobe and a rape apologist. (And the real classy thing is being called a lesbophobe as a lesbian by someone who isn't even a lesbian and is dating a dude.)

*offers hugs*

I am physically sick, just a head cold, but it was not helping my emotional depression. I was even contemplating self harm, cutting, thart sort of thing, even though I knew and know, headwise, it would not help. Even my usual not-quite healthy pleasure source, eating,was of little help at the time, and masturbation was out of the question.
Today was better. I was able to laugh and smile while reading my Power Girl tradeback, and I am slowly bur surely working on a picture for my next Pathfinder character if my present one dies.
I used one of the pictures as pose reference Still, my mood is very fragile at the moment.

Hope you feel better soon *offers hugs*

If i'm still hurting on Monday, I'll get an appointment. I've been feeling a lot of improvement on a day to day basis, and there's not a lot I can do on a weekend. It's just.. red state and we're in the gap, so I have to pay cash that I don't have for pretty much anything.

I hope it's nothing serious!

Public service announcement:

Spoiler: Sort-ofTW:RE: Suicide

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If you get to the point that you are contemplating suicide.

People will miss you. People will care. People you don't remember, or that you don't know that they know you, will care. People you see once a year, or once every five years, or knew you when they were growing up, will care. There are hundreds of people who know you that you don't think care about you, that care, and will miss you if you're gone.

There are huge groups of people, many of whom have gone through the same magnitude of troubles you have and will understand what you're going through, who want to help you even if they haven't met you yet. If you're in legal trouble or financial trouble there are people out there who can help fix it.

So please, please get help.

Spoiler: TW; Rant RE: Suicide!!

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And if you're determined to go through with it and don't listen to anything else, for crying out loud leave a note and call emergency services first so the person who finds your body is a trained professional who's expecting it, instead of surprising a friend, family member, or even a random stranger and scarring them for life.

But ideally, don't try in the first place, get help. We can't make you get help, if we could we would. A lot of times we don't know how bad it is, or you're really good at bottling it up- it's not that we don't care, we're just stupid, or not paying attention, or subtle hints that you need help are going completely over our head. Please please please get help.

If you're curious as to why this has come up, it is because someone I didn't know well committed suicide, and I'm fairly upset. My parents, who knew her much better, are absolutely devastated. Don't know if there was a note but her daughter found her, so the daughter will be dealing with that for the rest of her life. The whole situation is a huge mess.

I know a bunch of people here have depression (including myself) or other issues and struggle with this, or might end up struggling with this, so I thought I'd hopefully do something useful and remind everyone that thoughts along the lines of "no one will care if I'm gone" and "my friends/family/everyone else is better off without me" are lies your depressed brain is telling you and do not represent reality. If you're dealing with them on a regular basis, and maybe starting to listen to them, you need to get help, and you're not a bad person for needing help, and if you can read this then you have internet access and help is available.

rawr

*offers hugs*

That spoons theory thing reminds me of the mental calculus i was doing to justify whether i could go without eating another eighteen hours since I would just work or sleep through the calories anyway so they weren't worth it. >_<

That sounds really unhealthy, but you're probably aware of that.



On the spoon thing: I also think everyone should be allowed to use it, the more people knowing about it, and being aware of them as a ressource that can run out, the better. The only problem I could see with healthy people using them is that some people might use them too lightly, like "I'm a bit tired, that means I'm out of spoons!". But then, that would probably be a sign of another problem (like the "I can't be depressed, I'm just lazy" thing, that usually means, yes, you actually are depressed.)

And often, a lower draw. Things just don't always cost normal folks.

Uh, yeah, I wish my mum was more aware of that. She just don't understands how exhausting simple things like writing an email, or worse, making a phone call, are for me.

[Jormengand]

I think pink hair would make you even cuter~

Thankies.

As I said though, won't be for a while. But I'll do it eventually. : 3

[Jeff the Green]

And often, a lower draw. Things just don't always cost normal folks.

Or a different draw. The difference between a sitting activity and a standing activity is much greater for me than for most people, while someone with ADD may find that things requiring focus take more spoons and things involving creativity take fewer.

(Also, "normal" is no more appropriate in referring to able-bodied people than cis straight people.)

[noparlpf]

Or a different draw. The difference between a sitting activity and a standing activity is much greater for me than for most people, while someone with ADD may find that things requiring focus take more spoons and things involving creativity take fewer.

(Also, "normal" is no more appropriate in referring to able-bodied people than cis straight people.)

We're calling my stuff dysthymia and ADD at this point, but it's not so much an attention "deficit" as an attention regulation issue. Starting an activity takes a lot, but once I'm actually focussed on it I can keep going for several hours at a "normal" cost. But if I get distracted by something and end up off on that for a while I'm pretty much done with the first project for the day, and I might not manage to get back to working on that one for weeks.

[SiuiS]

Ironic lack of beligierence means I'm worried this comes off as dismissive. It's not, it's supposed to be sympathetic trough example, apologies if I dropped the ball there.

That sounds really unhealthy, but you're probably aware of that.

Yeah. It's related to anxiety stuffs I think. The idea that if I don't live my life optimally then I'm losing time that I'll never get back and since I didn't do what I could/should have with my pat I'm a constant failure was a thing I grappled with, and is part of my understanding now of the limits of logic.

I just avoid dietary budgets and thoughts of entropy in general nowadays. It's not about optimal/bleeding edge. It's about sufficient minimums. If I can eat enough to live, cool. If I avoid toxins then, bonus! The OCD creeps in every now and then though.

Uh, yeah, I wish my mum was more aware of that. She just don't understands how exhausting simple things like writing an email, or worse, making a phone call, are for me.

Nod nod.

It's a balance though. And frankly, it's impossible to tell which is which. For some people, it's a disability – no spoons. For others, is just laziness. And it's a person to person thing. Like, I had grade-ruining OCD. If my letters weren't perfectly lined up to the blue lines on the page, I would have to ritualistically correct them. I would have random letters drawn in huge, repeated don't until they were just so. Or I would have to touch people at the creases, antecubital fossa, anatomical snuff box, between fingers, behind knees. My hands are tingling now just thinking about it! And it doesn't go away until I Symmetrically apply pressure to that point on the target at both ends.

But I got over it, mostly, just by being told it was bad and I shouldn't do it (I knew that for the touching, never actually did, honestly). For some other folks with OCD though, that's not sufficient. They can't just stop and be okay.

Which makes it hard to tell regular folks. "Yeah. Lay off, because this is really draining for Juniper! It's totally just laziness on Mark's part though, go ahead and yell at him" just doesn't work. :(

(Also, "normal" is no more appropriate in referring to able-bodied people than cis straight people.)

I was not using normal to mean cissexual or heterosexual. I'm a
Mental wreck Who's used violence and aggression as a defense mechanism to shut off insecurity so I can move forward. My default responses to things are Engange in Battle, or Run Away And Cry, because getting beligierent is the only thing that keeps me sable enough to not crumple. I've spent days in an almost fugue hitting refresh and hoping someone would post in a play-by-post game because the game triggering my synesthesia was my only available mental medicine and people getting sick or going on holiday – thus shutting down my games – can and has sent me into a depressive spiral that ends in my household falling apart or me picking fights to keep myself going.

And that's what I contrast with 'normal'. People who can function without a gerry rigged spiderweb of distractions and sensation, precariously balanced without anyone else's knowledge.

Although I'm learning these people don't exist. They just have socially acceptable spiderwebs of support.

We're calling my stuff dysthymia and ADD at this point, but it's not so much an attention "deficit" as an attention regulation issue. Starting an activity takes a lot, but once I'm actually focussed on it I can keep going for several hours at a "normal" cost. But if I get distracted by something and end up off on that for a while I'm pretty much done with the first project for the day, and I might not manage to get back to working on that one for weeks.

That sounds like me, but (as above) I think in my case it's just a lack of discipline. Which really sucks because what for me can be fixed by cracking down on myself for you may be an actual problem that won't work for. It really clouds language use and means that there is no such thing as a good answer sans very concrete context.

Hell. Jor and I had an argument for that same reason. Just back and forth establishing sufficient context to tell if we actually disagreed. XD

[Lentrax]

You know, Si, the more you tell us about you, the more convinced I am I have a twin...

[Jeff the Green]

I was not using normal to mean cissexual or heterosexual. I'm a
Mental wreck Who's used violence and aggression as a defense mechanism to shut off insecurity so I can move forward. My default responses to things are Engange in Battle, or Run Away And Cry, because getting beligierent is the only thing that keeps me sable enough to not crumple. I've spent days in an almost fugue hitting refresh and hoping someone would post in a play-by-post game because the game triggering my synesthesia was my only available mental medicine and people getting sick or going on holiday – thus shutting down my games – can and has sent me into a depressive spiral that ends in my household falling apart or me picking fights to keep myself going.

And that's what I contrast with 'normal'. People who can function without a gerry rigged spiderweb of distractions and sensation, precariously balanced without anyone else's knowledge.

Although I'm learning these people don't exist. They just have socially acceptable spiderwebs of support.

What I was saying is that calling people who don't have illnesses or disabilities (mental or physical) "normal" is inappropriate for the same reasons calling people who are cis and straight "normal" is inappropriate.

[SiuiS]

You know, Si, the more you tell us about you, the more convinced I am I have a twin...

Nah. You e been through a lot and you're still going. I admire that, and recent events show i likely wouldn't be nearly as capable as you are.

What I was saying is that calling people who don't have illnesses or disabilities (mental or physical) "normal" is inappropriate for the same reasons calling people who are cis and straight "normal" is inappropriate.

Ah, I misread you then. My mistake.

I completely agree.

[Lentrax]

I don't know... We seem to share some basic mental traits, based on what I read, and the reason I keep going is because I am too damn stubborn to just give in.

[SiuiS]

Okay, I'll take the compliment.

[Heliomance]

... dammit, brain. I would appreciate it if my dreams could be a little less... Freudian.

[Lentrax]

Why are you dreaming of Freud?

Excuse my poor taste in humor, it's a long night here at work...

[Grytorm]

Hmm. I had kind of a Freudian dream last night. It was kind of boring. Mostly I was making out with some guy who now annoys me.

Also I feel depressed.

[The Succubus]

... dammit, brain. I would appreciate it if my dreams could be a little less... Freudian.

I would settle for dreams where I'm not getting punched in the face, or trapped on scary high places. Weirdly enough, you were in my dream a couple of nights back. You gave me some pretty solid advice on making decisions.

[Heliomance]

Hmm. I had kind of a Freudian dream last night. It was kind of boring. Mostly I was making out with some guy who now annoys me.

Also I feel depressed.

Second base. With my sister. What the hell, brain? What the actual hell?

[Jormengand]

Second base. With my sister. What the hell, brain? What the actual hell?

Welp...

Was it nice, though?

[Anarion]

Second base. With my sister. What the hell, brain? What the actual hell?

Your family has good genetics, maybe? Or, you know, the dream doesn't really have any meaning because it's just your brain associating separate random things that it's sorting out and throwing them all together with no proper sense of time or connection. But probably the Freud thing.

[AGD]

I think, I get the cake for weird "freudian" dreams. I had four such dreams in my life. Three of them were really weird and after i had them, I had no idea, why I found them erotic, while I had the dream.

The only relatively normal one was where I had a holiday in norway and married a woman there and moved to norway to live with her. The one with my brother was relatively normal in comparison to the other two. In one of them, I was overthrown by a mob of female vampires, that didn't want my blood. But gold goes to the one, where I was married to a giant man-eating sea monster. The monster looked like a giant overweighted green-skinned woman overgrown with moss. I didn't find her attractive after I woke up, but I find her attractive, while I had the dream.

[Grytorm]

Ah but according to Freud all dreams are Freudian dreams. You just don't know it because they are icky when you know the truth of what your subconscious is getting up to.

Spoiler: Depression

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I am feeling depressed again. I skipped a class last Thursday because I hadn't done the reading and couldn't face the teacher. I feel useless and empty again. With poor impulse control. Death is always lingering in my thoughts. Going to sleep is scary because it leaves me alone with my thoughts. Driving is hard because of how simple it would be to unbuckle myself and ram into a tree well over the speed limit. Right now I want to curl up somewhere. But a lot of the time I can keep myself entertained and my mind off the topic.

In lighter news I have started to read the Wheel of Time. In some ways the stories treatment of gender is cringe worthy, but in others it is kind of interesting.

[noparlpf]

Second base. With my sister. What the hell, brain? What the actual hell?

I vaguely remember a dream in which an old woman with a mushroom for a penis showed up at one point. Like how in manga sometimes they'll show a little mushroom in the corner of the panel when somebody saw a penis off the edge of the page. I think there were also Pokémon cards?