Storytime

context: grew up in an abusive, controlling home, escaped to uni, had a prolonged mental breakdown, became a teacher and worked in a dysfunctional school with amazing kids and nightmare management for years. I did not realise I have adhd and autism for a long time. (You might even be able to scroll back through this blog to find the time around which I did realise lol.)

ANYWAY, things that have helped me because my body can no longer handle any kind of stress without flaring up:

If you’re doing anything that requires you to do a lot of prep before you begin the actual thing (e.g. cooking, deep cleaning a room, moving house), mise en place. That’s a fancy french way of saying get everything ready before you begin. So if I’m cooking idk spaghetti carbonara, that means fry and chop the bacon, separate the egg yolks from the whites, put water in the kettle, put dry spaghetti into a pan. Once everything’s ready, it reduces the mental load and means I can focus on the actual cooking and any clean up that I can do along the way. H/t to @ms-demeanor for this, you changed my life!

the Might As Well rule. This one works really well for me but you gotta be careful otherwise you’ll get sucked into the Vortex. Basically, let’s imagine you’re in the bathroom, brushing your teeth. You notice that the extra roll of toilet paper has been used. instead of thinking, “I’ll get to that later”, and then forgetting about it until you sit down on the bog (no judgement, we’ve all been there), you think “Might As Well put an extra roll while I’m here!” This tends to help with the little tasks that build up over time. This Does Not Work for big tasks.

Leading on from no.2, Do It Immediately/ASAP really helps me too. My current boss will email me on a Friday and say, ‘don’t reply to this now! Leave it til monday!’ But she and i both know that if i leave it til monday, I will forget and get stressed and this will make me Very Ill. So, instead, the moment i receive the email, I’ll either schedule in replying to it as soon as I’m done with my current thing, OR I’ll reply to it immediately.

Anything that can’t be actioned immediately, i mark as Unread. Anything Unread in my inbox is a future action, and i check those Unread emails/texts/whatevers Every. Day. To make sure whether today is the day i have the info to action it. (This also means i have to stay on top of my inbox. I read all my emails and then mark them accordingly. I’m also brutal with unsubscribing)

The House Always Wins. Both in a literal sense, because i am in a constant battle with keeping my house clean, and i know now that I’ll never get it as clean as i want it. It’s impossible, i no longer have the energy or stamina to vacuum and scrub everything. But also just in a life sense. I’m never going to achieve things to perfection, and perfect is the opposite of done. And getting things done is that much more important when you have limited energy and strength. Accept that you often have to half-arse life in order to Full-Arse the few things that really matter to you.

Have multiples of everything, everywhere. I wear support gloves, so i need to have handcream at every sink and everywhere i sit down in the house. I try to keep it unobtrusive, but it means i don’t have to trek upstairs just to moisturise my hands. Gum, phone chargers, pens and pencils, water bottles, hand sanitizer, whatever you need.

Work with people, even if it’s online. Body doubling actually works. Also I’ve found that if I’m working on assignments, taking myself to a library or study area that isn’t my bedroom helps so much.

Show off! Tell people on here or elsewhere in your life about the fact that you’ve just written 100 words! Or that you’ve cleaned the fridge and that’s a really big deal for you. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small.

Basically, you’re aiming to reduce the mental load as much as possible. Wear the same types of clothes all the time to minimise the amount of laundry. Eat the same three lunches so decision fatigue doesn’t take over.

For anybody looking for resources from someone dealing with actual ADHD, I have an incomplete but ever growing list of ADHD tips, tools, and suggestions on my website.

A lot of the pages on that site are adapted from my tumblr posts, for instance I'm adapting this post about car repair projects with ADHD into a guide on project management and completion with ADHD.

This is all good, actionable advice. I won't be able to do all it every day, but even the person giving the advice acknowledges that.

The Enigma of Amigara Fault

This short story by Junji Ito is about a fault that appears in Amigara mountain after an earthquake. The earthquake exposes countless human-shaped holes in the mountain which seem to have been made about a thousand years ago. People, intrigued by these  silhouettes, gather at the site and that’s when things get creepy.

Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.

So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.

But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.

It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?

So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:

Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.

And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.

So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".

So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.

My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.

Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.

Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.

Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).

Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues

According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.

Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.

For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.

Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life

Aaand a close-up:

HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE

for any address to twitter you can replace the “x.com” with “nitter.net” and you will be able to browse as if you have an account. Lifesaver.