I typed up a really long comment praising this post and somehow kbin ate it. I am sad, because my adhd pretty much prevents me from being arsed enough to type it out again and I am sad. I knew I should have copied it just in case before I hit post. Another adhd lesson learned.
Edit: glory be! The back button allowed me to find it. Posted it for real this time.
Don’t refer to someone as “MILF” unless they are old enough to be your average friends’ mother.
I knew a couple of girls who had babies at 17/18 and immediately began calling themselves MILFs and it’s like people just do not understand what the term was created to convey.
Honestly, don’t refer to yourself as a MILF at all. That’s for other people to decide.
It tastes like pesticides to me.
A year or so ago I mostly would have agreed with this but there are exceptions. I had a foster dog who was the opposite of everything I ever imagined about a chihuahua. She was curious about everything instead of afraid, only peed outside or on the piddle pads during training, didn’t shake unless it was actually cold, and didn’t really bark, even when we kept her separate from the rest of the house during the introduction process. She was friendly to any people she met and loved other dogs and cats. She was a quick learner with tricks and desperate to please. She was all-around super chill and honestly I should have kept her and immediately regretted letting them adopt her out. What prevented me from doing so was… my prejudice against chihuahuas and being seen as someone who owned a chihuahua. It was dumb and I regret it and miss her all the time. I hope she is living her best life out there in the world. So hashtag notallchihuahuas! (My neighbors also have some pretty chill chis, but foster Pixie was the shit. Great little dog.)
I started a bit seeing my hometown mentioned as the setting for a series of books. I will have to check that out now!
It’s phones. Phones are a major problem that no one is willing or able to combat. Schools gave up on trying to ban them because the parents pitch a fit and go to the school board to insist they need to be able to contact their children at all times.
I asked a colleague yesterday if his daughter—who was an avid reader just a few years ago—had checked out the Libby app yet and he said she barely reads now… because she got a cellphone.*
Until we are willing to break ourselves and our children of this addiction education will continue to decline.
*I am aware there is a certain irony in me complaining about cellphones and also recommending an app that is meant to be accessed via cellphone/tablet, but the point still stands!
I started my first bujo five years ago and I feel like it changed my life. It started out very simple, with a list of my events for the week, and now it has evolved into one of those complex, pretty, artsy ones that also serves as a functional object for tracking what I need to do/what I’ve done/what happened. I find I hold myself more accountable if I actually write it down, and I am more likely to practice good habits because I want to be able to fill in my habit tracker. I take pride in seeing all my little boxes filled in. I also have a “negative” habit tracker that I want to keep clean, and it helps me visualize trends in my behavior and adapt accordingly, or motivate me to do better in the coming month. I take pride in seeing those boxes are not filled in.
As for the artsiness, I am not naturally an artist, but making my journal beautiful is a source of pride and it’s cool to see how it has evolved over the years. I am more motivated to do my journaling because it looks neat and challenges me to do something creative. One of my habit trackers is for “create” and working within my journal is one of the ways I fill that square. I’ve become more artistic in general, and took up playing the bass again after a ten year lapse due to that goal. I also read more, pretty much every day, due to a tracker for that, and I spend less time on my phone/videogames due to a negative tracker for that. I eat healthier, work out more, and pretty much quit drinking, all in part to my little colored/not colored squares.
It has been going so well that I am starting to ween myself off my decades-long reliance on antidepressants, despite the death of two brothers, both dogs, my mother and grandmother in just the last two years (not to mention the pandemic!)
I also credit The Four Agreements with reframing my headspace. (The book is kind of woo-y nonsense, and I will never forgive the part about causing people to get cancer with your words, but the actual rules are a great and simple life guide.) The agreements are:
*Be impeccable with your word
*Don’t take it personally
*Never assume things
*Always do your best
Not taking things personally has especially helped me, specifically with regards to that “self-blame”/rejection sensitivity dysphoria thing you discuss in your document.
My boyfriend also has ADHD, and I have been trying to get him to start one for years. He refuses to do a physical journal and, unsurprisingly, he is not successful with the endeavor and continues to feel overwhelmed by his disorder. I believe there really is something to the process of hands-on writing things down that drives us to stick to it. Maybe something to do with how little of our life operates that way anymore, as everything is convenient digital ephemera, so the intentionality of writing it out feels more concrete. Like a contract with ourselves.
Anyway, all of this to say, YES! If you are struggling with ADHD, start a bujo! Make it a habit. Stick to it. Do your best.
Thanks for this document. I have saved and shared it.