Bicarbonate Sofa

Thunderbolts (2016), No. 7 Variant Cover by Marco Checchetto

a Marvel Trumps Hate ( @marveltrumpshate ) 2021 commission created with embroidery floss, watercolors, fabric, and fine glitter paint on aida cloth in a 10" bamboo hoop frame

A lot of life happened between the commission date and now, but I'm very proud of how this turned out, and I know that 2021 Rebecca wouldn't have been able to create this, so the time was worth it. (No offense 2021 Rebecca, we've just grown as an artist.)

Bonus for details and ✨sparkles✨

Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is an extreme emotional sensitivity and emotional pain triggered by the perception – not necessarily the reality – that a person has been rejected, teased, or criticized by important people in their life. RSD may also be triggered by a sense of failure, or falling short – failing to meet either their own high standards or others’ expectations.

Dysphoria is Greek for “difficult to bear.” It’s not that people with ADHD are wimps, or weak; it’s that the emotional response hurts them much more than it does people without the condition.

When this emotional response is internalized, it can imitate full, major depression complete with suicidal ideation. The sudden change from feeling perfectly fine to feeling depressed that results from RSD is often misdiagnosed as rapid cycling bipolar disorder.

It can take a long time for physicians to recognize that these symptoms are caused by the sudden emotional changes associated with ADHD and rejection sensitivity, while all other object relations are totally normal.

When this emotional response is externalized, it looks like an impressive, instantaneous rage at the person or situation responsible for causing the pain. 50% of people who are assigned court-mandated anger-management treatment have previously unrecognized ADHD.

Alternately, this is your notice that There’s A Name For That Horrible Experience.

Box!

Like ok, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the world. But it’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your foot’s warm.

There have been studies done on rats and dogs where they develop learned helplessness in the animals by giving them impossible tasks. Eventually the animals stop trying, even when the task stops being impossible. (I.e. put a rat in a maze with cheese it can’t get to until it develops learned helplessness, then put the cheese somewhere it can get to it and it won’t even try.) But once they show the animals they CAN do something - i.e. physically moving the rat to the cheese - the learned helplessness goes away.

No one can move you to your cheese for you, but the book says DOING something - which they define as “anything that isn’t nothing” can help. Make a food. Work in the garden. Clean a thing. Do a favor for a friend. Call your elected officials.

Knit a sock.

Long hair