*Stutters Agressively*

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so go drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"

Working at Harvard in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s as a “Computer”, Annie Jump Cannon cataloged stars using their spectra from photographic plates, in an effort to understand the mysteries and peculiarities of stellar spectra.

This was hard, detailed, nuanced work. By 1889, three years into her work, she had classified over 1,000 stars. By 1913, she could classify 200 stars an hour. She could classify three stars a minute, just by sight. Using a magnifying glass, she could classify stars down to 9th magnitude, 16 times fainter than the human eye can see. And she did this all with exceptional accuracy.

Over the course of her career, she personally classified more than 350,000 stars, accounting for a mind-boggling 98% of all contemporary stellar spectra classifications, a feat that wouldn’t be bested until the 1990’s with automated digital sky surveys.

Cannon used these classifications to develop the Harvard spectral classification system (O–B–A–F–G–K–M), organizing stars by surface temperature and physical properties.

It is hard to overstate just how foundational her work was to modern astronomy and astrophysics. Her classifications have enabled more than a century of breakthroughs in stellar structure and evolution, including the understanding of how stars change over time and how temperature, luminosity, and composition are related. The system underpins the Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagram, one of the most important tools in astrophysics, and remains embedded in modern research, from stellar population studies to galaxy evolution.

Let’s turn from space research to microbiology!

This is microbiologist Elizabeth Lee Hazen (left) and chemist Rachel Brown (right), who, in 1950, discovered nystatin, the first known antifungal and still a first-line treatment for certain fungal diseases such as candida overgrowth (thrush, vaginal yeast infections, and more). It’s comparable to the antibiotic penicillin in importance.

As soon as I feel the RSD punch me in the gut, I _tell_ my friend. "Hey hold on, wait, I am suddenly feeling really insecure, and that is my ADHD so can you please reassure me that (insert negative thought) is ok? That I am not (insert negative belief)? I know asking this is weird but it will stop me from overthinking it all day.

THIS IS WORLD CHANGING I PROMISE.

Because my friend/family member/safe person/loved one knows the feeling of rejection, and does not wish that on you. Now they have the opportunity to 1) correct a negative perception of your friendship 2)soothe you like a Good Friend 3) get rid of miscommunications before they can become problems.

Which makes them feel good about themselves!

The replies I usually get are soothing + statements like:

Oh I did not know how to respond to that.

I find your presence more important than your contribution to X because I appreciate you.

Wow that is such a negative thought, I didn't mean it like that! I actually meant (plottwist nuance).

Omg I know that feeling and that sucks!! I can see why you would think that based on my bluntness, but you are completely discounting your (good quality I forgot about).

Sorry I knew that came off as really judgy but our humours differ, I have a humour style that is based on 'mocking the status quo' and you have one that is based on 'expanding the status quo via plottwists and double meanings'. So I don't associate X with you at all, I made the comment precisely because you don't have X. So its funny? Get it? Omg I'm a jerk and plz reassure me back.

Whoops didn't know that it triggered you but here are 100x compliments.

I promise this helps a TON. Start doing it with your Safe Person first, and then your friends, and then with everyone. You will be surprised to find out how often RSD is lying to you and how much relief it gives, to find that out with 10 seconds rather than after days of negative overthinking (since RSD and Delayed Processing are two evil BFFs).

If you struggle with mutism or cannot verbalize the Ideal Text Message to ask soothing, I have a solution too. I agreed with my friends that the octopus emoji means "I feel RSD/awful SOS help" (the 8 arms of the octopus can hug real good). And the receiver replies kindly or calls to soothe.

This strategy is NOT meant to:

Make others treat you like a special snowflake, by forcing them to mask and tip-toe around you 24/7 so you feel safe.

make others responsible for your emotional stability 24/7.

Let others do your emotional labour for you, by having them tell you how you should feel.

Manipulation/irresponsible stuff idk

RSD is a bitch, but it isn't your default mode. Recognize that it's a wave, a symptom that comes and goes. Normally, you can process all just fine. Sometimes, you need a little bit of extra help and kindness.

I see it as a knee injury that flares up at rainy weather. If I ask a person if I can lean on then for a sec, it passes. If I walk with it for the rest of the day, it continues to hurt. The faster&more I lean on my friend, the fewer seconds it will bother me. It will never go away. But like a sensitive muscle, the rejection sensitivity, can be more tolerable when you differ real rejection pain from fake rejection pain.

RSD is a survival mechanism that makes us wargame the future and interactions and feel bad. Your mental filter becomes a rejection seeking compass that is continuously seeking to confirm biased negative self-beliefs.

It can ALSO BE A STRENGTH if you FLIP IT, because when your mind wargames the future and interactions, and you use Mel Robbin's strategies of reprogramming the recticular activating mechanism (see videos) then you have the tools to use that same sensitivity to spot success. Then your filter system continuously forms a compass to look for success opportunities and to confirm bias that you are loved and wanted.

The compliment/correction ratio that ADHD kids hear is like super unbalanced. So usually the filter is focused on negatives. But if you learn to use the above 3 tools (ask fast, octopus, mel robbins) to shift your perspective, you stand stronger mentally. So after RSD knees you in the gut, you can at least kick the RSD in the teeth.

"I wrote a eulogy for my best friend last week. Then I read it to him. At the pub. On a Tuesday."

He was alive, holding a pint, looking at me like I'd lost my mind. Maybe I have.

I'm Mick. I'm 70. The man across the table was Barry. Seventy-two. Best mate for 46 years. Met on a building site in 1979. He dropped a plank on my foot. I called him something unrepeatable. He bought me a pint after the shift. Haven't gone a week without talking since.

Three months ago we went to a funeral. Bloke we'd worked with. Cancer. The eulogies were beautiful - people saying what he meant to them, things they'd clearly never said to his face. And all I could think was, he can't hear any of this.

Every beautiful sentence. Every "he changed my life." Said to a room of crying people and a box of wood.

I turned to Barry. Whispered, "What a waste."

Drove home. Couldn't sleep. Because I realised, if Barry died tomorrow, I'd stand up and say extraordinary things about this man. Things I've never said in 46 years. And he'd be in the box, missing all of it.

So I wrote them down. Took a week. Harder than expected - not finding the words, but admitting I had them.

Rang him. "Tuesday. The Crown. Need to read you something."

"Have you joined a book club?"

"Just come."

Same corner table. Pint of bitter. Crisps. I pulled out the paper. He saw my hands shake.

"Mick. What's this?"

"Your eulogy. I'm reading it now because I'm not wasting it on a day you can't hear it."

"Have you gone mad?"

"Probably. Shut up and listen."

I read it. In a pub. To a man very much alive and very much uncomfortable.

I told him about the plank and how it was the best injury of my life. About the night he drove forty minutes in rain to help change a tyre. About how he rang every day for three months after my divorce and never once asked "Are you alright?" - just talked about football and weather, because he knew I didn't need a question. I needed a voice.

I told him he was the funniest man I'd ever known and his jokes were terrible and both things were true. That he'd been a better father than he thinks. That his wife's a saint and he knows it. That I'd have been a worse man without him.

He didn't look at me. Stared at his pint. Jaw tight. Doing that thing men do when the feelings arrive and they'd rather swallow glass than show it.

When I finished, long silence. Then he picked up his pint, took a sip, and said,

"You're paying for the next round. And the one after."

That was his answer. Perfect. Because Barry doesn't say "I love you too." He says "you're buying."

But in the car park, he hugged me. Not the quick back-pat. A real one. Thirty seconds. Neither let go first.

And he said quietly into my shoulder, "Don't read that again at the real one. I want new material."

Who would you write a eulogy for - while they're still here?

Don't wait. The flowers can't hear. The box doesn't laugh. Say it now. At the pub. Over a bad cup of tea. You'll feel ridiculous.

They'll look uncomfortable. It'll be the most important thing you've ever done.

Read them the speech while they can still hug you in the car park.”