chromatic rascal

let's say you, a person with adhd, have to take a shower. a really simple task, technically, but also somehow impossible because your brain is acting like a little bratty baby and telling you that just getting there is "so much woooork".

it's exhausting. plus, fighting your brain only adds to the effort, which only makes it more exhausting and more likely to play video games and become grosser and grosser.

full stop. you're not getting anywhere. luckily, your brain is as dumb as it is loud and stubborn. you've probably been in a place before where you couldn't possibly recount how buying fresh vegetables and leaving fresh vegetables in the bottom of your fridge for six months led to moldy vegetables, or how not renewing netflix subscription led to no netflix—because surprise, surprise! adhd symptoms include consequence blindness.

now, executive dysfunction—as described earlier—is another adhd symptom: getting stuck when trying to start a task. rather than continuing to run against the dysfunction wall, compromise with your brain. you're not trying to take a shower after all, you're just pausing the game.

then compromise again. you're not taking a shower, just going to the bathroom. you're not taking a shower, just undressing and turning on the water and stepping in and—oh.

see how consequence blindness (if i do this, that can't possibly follow) leads to tricking executive dysfunction? you've broken down your task into baby steps and convinced your brain that each baby step will be the last one you have to take.

this works for other stuff too: you're not making a phone call, just putting in the number, then pressing the call button, then suddenly you're making a phone call with no clue how you got there /s

exploit your symptoms to help you with others—even if you're "supposed" to do something of your own will, what works works, so why not use it?

Invasions must be pretty weird from the ally perspective, huh?

(~2300 words)

~

“Deri. Hey! Hey, Deri!”

You sigh, open your eyes and glare at the two intruding crewmen from across your drink. This is the only break you’ll be getting today and you really didn’t want to spend it talking to two people you don’t know.

“What?” you snap. You’re not sure if you outrank them or if they outrank you or if that even matters right now. It probably does.

The one who called your name doesn’t seem to care. They ignore your tone and pull up a chair, kicking the other empty one out for their companion. You scowl at them and they ignore that too.

“You were at that Grineer base, right? The one where the Tenno showed up?”

The other crewman rolls their eyes. “For fucks sake, I told you no one’s ever seen one of those things and lived to tell the fuckin’ tale. And Corp’s certainly never hired one .”

(source)

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Puppeteer Lee