What is she making you do? Does it have to be at a specific time?

Okay so tw for animal abuse because there’s no way to explain what’s going on here without bringing the nasty parts of it up too. Also this is a painfully long-winded explanation so I apologize for that.

I am expected to walk the dog in the early morning. He absolutely must be walked as early as possible due to the fact that he hasn’t been able to properly hold his water since we neutered him some years back and will totally pee on the carpet if he isn’t walked every few hours. The biggest break he gets from walks is to sleep late night to early morning, but by morning he’s pretty much at a high risk of having an accident.

Taking the dog out in the morning used to be my mom’s job. She’s the one who’s up before 6 AM every day, so like, it made sense she would walk him. The problem is that she’s always slacking off with walking him, and the result is that she’d wait too long to walk him and he’d have accidents pretty regularly. Then she’d get pissed off and start violently beating the dog (sometimes with a shoe), and sometimes would verbally threaten to kill him. This would be bad for a dog of any size, but ours is a tiny little thing, so it’s that much worse.

So she started getting mad at me next (which is always the natural progression of things), because I would sometimes be up all night and in a position to take the dog out in the morning, but rarely did. I’d only take the dog on mornings I knew I’d be up super late and didn’t care when I went to bed. But this was apparently unacceptable, and my mom made it my responsibility to take the dog out every morning.

How this factors into me gradually losing my goddamn mind is that I am, for some ungodly reason, super sensitive to sunlight in the weirdest way. Like, I have to sleep with one of those dumb looking eye masks on because if I wake up and see even a little bit of sunlight, I might not be able to go back to sleep. Actually being outside in sunlight will wake me the fuck up no matter how tired I am. So naturally, being forced to take the dog out on mornings I’d otherwise be sleeping profoundly messes me up. On days where I’d be in bed before 5, I’m now stuck staying up to walk the dog once it gets light out, and then being out in the sun has me physically unable to fall asleep until 8:30-10:30 in. the. freaking. morning.

To make things worse, I get irrationally upset if I wake up past 3 PM, So like, no matter when I get to bed, I have to get up before 3 if I don’t want to wake up a panicking, distraught mess. Between that and walking the dog early for the past couple months, I literally cannot remember the last time I got a healthy amount of sleep and it’s catching up to me. I’m at my wit’s end. I can’t do this anymore. But if I don’t, my mom will just go back to beating the dog. I’m not about to sit back and let her beat the shit out of our 15 year old miniature dachshund. 

I feel like the answer lies in the culture surrounding slave Leia.

^^^

Well, I know for a fact that there’s almost no research on how hormone replacement therapy affects medication and ADHD symptom presentation in trans ADHDers. Anyone else got anything to throw in? - Prue

That was one of the topics I was thinking of, actually. I’d also be interested to see research into which types of ADHD are more likely to succeed at FOLLOWING YOUR PASSION! and crap like that, because my theory is that PH are more likely to do well with that and those of us who lean more to PI have a huge problem with directing hyperfocus where we want it (and potentially have a bazillion more “passions” to choose from) so can’t do that. Also research into how to help those of us who struggle with inertia and task switching would be swell. -J

I want more research into adult ADHD and especially into atypical symptoms of ADHD. I’ve recently started realizing that the reason I’ve been constantly tired most of my life yet still been unable to fall asleep easily is probably because of my ADHD. Following that train of thought I found several studies on the connection between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and ADHD (something which I’ve never heard of before). I’ve been alternating between relief because it finally makes sense and frustration because not a single one of the doctors I went to because of it made the tiniest connection to ADHD. One doctor told me to try relaxing before I go to sleep. Thanks. -Becca

I mean, he did tell you he was a youth minister right at the start. I don’t know what everyone expected

Like, I think the funny part to me is, like, the phrasing of it as a “cult outfit” makes it sound like something that, well, isn’t traditional Christian garb, which is well represented in popular American culture. The phrasing made me expect something someone in a Cthulhu cult would wear. Frankly, I’m pretty sure that a lot of people expected him in a minister outfit at some point, I know I did.

In context, it’s his cult outfit. It’s the outfit he’s wearing when he tells you about the cult. The fact that he probably wears it while preaching to his congregation is, admittedly, arguably irrelevant.

But, it’s funny to think of it, like, a) people don’t know what Christian ministers wear which is understandable, b) they know but they’re calling it a cult outfit anyway and ignoring that it makes it sound like Christianity is a cult, c) they know but they calling it a cult outfit anyway because it makes it sound like Christianity is a cult.

there’s also that thing where they’re related.

Weirdly enough, a few months ago, when someone asked GRRM if Jaime/Cersei were going to end up happy, GRRM said something like, “You do know it’s incest, right?” and people were so pissed at him for implying incest  = they’re automatically going to get an unhappy ending.

I feel like it might be helpful to advise fan creators to "know your audience" in this regard. If the people who frequent your fandom also spend a lot of time discussing homophobia or racism, then it stands to reason that they wouldn't want to see racist or homophobic works.

Frankly, I’d hope no fandom would tolerate racist or homophobic works, and I’d hope that people who write racist and homophobic would have a hard time finding an audience of any size.

I wouldn’t even advise “know your audience” because that is directly stating that homophobia and racism are acceptable, you just need to find the right group to appreciate it. And, honestly, I am loathe to suggest that. I’m not interested in helping bigots find an audience for their work. There’s a wide berth of difference between a “homophobic or racist work” and a “work that deals with homophobia or racism”.