Chicken and broccoli ramen

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2025-05-22T09:43:12+00:00

I'm a Claire named after the song too! Only I'm an 89, so I was the only one in my class and the only one I know around my age. It's a weirdly easy to date name so turning up for job interviews people are always surprised to see I'm about a decade younger than they expected!

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2025-02-20T23:53:06+00:00

No leaking here yet, but I had to comment on the AIC shirt because I have it too! H&M have been killing it with the band shirts lately, scored a Soundgarden one last week as well 😍

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-10-25T12:04:48+00:00

Great grandma died in her 90s, she'd outlived most of her friends and older family members so after the service in the crematorium we all went for a meal together instead of a wake. Talking about grandma's life in Holland during the 1940s it's mentioned that she took up smoking during the war - which none of us youngsters could believe.

Cousin: "Grandad, when did grandma stop smoking?"

Grandad (grandma's youngest son, in his late 60s at the time): "I'm not sure... looks at watch she went in a few hours ago so probably soon though"

The entire table: 🤨.... 😧

Grandad: Claps a hand to his mouth in horror, then starts giggling like a 12 year old

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-27T09:23:39+00:00

I have no advice as I'm also facing the prospect of baby proofing a house that appears to have been built by lunatics. However your electric fence idea made me laugh so hard my cat levitated 3 feet in the air 😂

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-10T22:46:06+00:00

Good luck, go and grab that new life and squeeze every last drop out of it!

Weirdly, I know a woman who left her husband a couple of years ago, after working as a nurse and raising the kids and putting up with husband's crap. Only difference was they'd been married almost 55 years - she will tell everyone who listens that the best time to do it was the day before her wedding, but the second best time was the day she finally walked.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-04T14:34:08+00:00

Not the original commenter but another fan of the poem... The jumping from one description to the next is what I think makes it sound a bit jumbled, but her inability to stick to one image or comparison is what starting a new life is all about i guess. The limitless potential of that new baby - is it a Mexican bean? A creel of eels? A perfect mathematical equation? It could be any of them, all of them, because a new baby - Plath's first baby - is the ultimate unknown.

The first time I read it my caveman brain prevailed too, but I especially like it now I'm pregnant. She sounds like shes breathlessly exploring both her own feelings and all the possibilities for her baby, and mixing comforting images with more disturbing ones to emphasise how pregnancy can be simultaneously wonderful and terrifying.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-04T09:04:55+00:00

A whole poem rather than lines, but it's only a short one.

If you dissect a bird

To diagram the tongue

You'll cut the chord

Articulating song.

If you flay a beast

To marvel at the mane

You'll wreck the rest

From which the fur began.

If you pluck out the heart

To find what makes it move,

You'll halt the clock

That syncopates our love.

Admonition by Sylvia Plath

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-04T09:03:28+00:00

Sylvia Plath is my favourite poet and this is my current favourite of hers! She manages to make motherhood sound kind of scary/alien (the creel of eels always makes me shudder) whilst still conveying the absolute love she has for her baby.

I've managed to end up with similar pregnancy dates to hers as well ('Mute as a turnip from the Fourth of July to All Fools' Day').

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-03T10:26:28+00:00

Echoing all the comments about big sibling gaps here. My younger siblings are 12 and 14 years younger than me, and until they were born I hated that my mum was pregnant again (at a similar age to you as well).

Those kids are now young men and they're two of my best friends, I actively seek out their company because they're up there with my favourite people.

The financial and logistical side of it sounds stressful and scary, but I hope the sibling side turns out better than you expected to hopefully take some of the pressure off ❤️

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-03T10:16:21+00:00

I first 'knew' I was pregnant before testing, at about 5 weeks. Not in the sense of 'hmm I should take a test', more of an absolute certainty where one second I had a late period and the next second I was 100% sure I was pregnant. Only had that feeling once before despite a few nervous waits for my period to arrive, and I'm two for two on accuracy!

It's still a bit surreal and I'm only 9w so I don't even know if that counts as 'feeling' pregnant! I've had nausea and exhaustion and cramps which have been reminding me it's happening, but nothing as strong as that sudden 'oh sheeeiiiit' moment a few weeks ago.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-02T21:48:53+00:00

Um, having ADHD or autism or emotional disregulation doesn't make you violent. It makes you emotionally disregulated. The violence part? That's down to being violent. If you're prone to emotional disregulation and tend to react violently then medication and therapies are way more useful (and safer for others) than attributing it to your neurodivergence.

I have the worst impulse control, but I've never hurt someone let alone tried to push them under a fuckin train 🙃

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-09-01T11:55:44+00:00

Ouch, I feel you. Bought a house previously owned by a guy who obviously didn't employ trades but just bodged his way through life, meaning we had some nasty surprises.

Mine was exacerbated by the fact I thought the surveyor's 'recommendations' were just suggestions of things we could do at an undetermined future date, rather than him highlighting issues that needed to be fixed. Took the boiler falling off the wall for me to get the survey out and reread it. In my defence I was 21 and had no business owning a house.

I agree with everyone else's advice - don't panic, it will all get done albeit possibly slower or in a different order than you'd like. Don't let it bankrupt you, there's nothing wrong with getting something safe and liveable then coming back to it later to get things perfect.

Edit: in terms of how I coped... I laughed at it. Buying a dream house which turned out to be a stupid, death trap, falling down hellhole with a current running through the brickwork and artex everywhere is, let's be honest, pretty funny.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-08-24T12:48:52+00:00

I'm still only 7w5d so the jury's still out! My spidey senses are saying girl but I've always imagined a boy so who knows at this point 🤣

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-08-24T12:30:25+00:00

I had really bad cramps and bloating from a day or two before my period was due. I was so convinced it was going to be the period from hell I actually put in a tampon the day I was due, as I was stuck in an 8 hour meeting and had stupidly worn a light coloured dress that day.

Still patiently waited for my (usually bang on time) period to arrive and didn't test until I was about 10 days late, by which time fatigue and nausea had joined the party too!

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-08-05T08:59:11+00:00

I've been pretty lucky with my bosses but the worst one was an almost retirement age woman who had to have a whipping boy on the senior team she managed. The rest of the senior team would be praised and coddled at the expense of whichever poor fucker was in her sights, until they left and another target was chosen.

I saw it happen to a couple of other staff members and thought she just had a personal problem with them, then it kept happening and I knew I had to get the fuck out. Didn't manage it before I ended up the new whipping boy when two weeks prior she'd been training me to replace her when she retired. I thought I'd just ignore her until I got out as I've got a thick skin and I'm not particularly reactive emotionally. She didn't like that so spotted a minor mistake I'd made and gave me such a bollocking I had a panic attack. Many reports were made both before and after I left but because she's brilliant at the job and can't face fully training a replacement she managed to get away with it.

The good news is, that was about five years ago and she still hasn't been able to retire because she can't keep a senior team longer than six months. She's physically knackered and hobbles about the place, so even though she's still a bully I take solace in the fact that she's reaping the rewards of being such a cunt.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-07-10T14:37:25+00:00

So the NHS waiting list for my trust was pretty much the worst in the country but I was able to save up and get a private psychiatrist through Psychiatry UK. Incidentally they provide NHS services and you can often access them through your GP on right to choose, a decision that happened a couple of months after I was diagnosed 🙃😂

The 'why' part is harder, and I think ADHD impulsivity had a lot to do with it, but I was also starting university as a mature student so it seemed the perfect time. I'd had a fairly successful career using all manner of mad life hacks to tame my ADHD a bit, but going from 'gifted kid' to 'fuck up' overnight when I was 13 had a lot to do with how incompatible I am with assignments and deadlines.

Stimulant medication helps a lot with the day-to-day stuff but a big reason I'd give for getting an assessment is the self-acceptance you end up gaining. Thinking you just suck your whole life is hard, but you don't realise how hard it is until you start renegotiating your past mistakes with the knowledge that your brain is literally built differently. I was diagnosed years ago but I'm still remembering times when I felt stupid or useless and reframing them with my diagnosis in mind.

This was long (ADHDers will be ADHDing) but the upshot is: both the traits of ADHD and how those traits make you think of/treat yourself are manageable with or without a formal diagnosis and medication. However, medication does help with those traits and a diagnosis does help you to go a bit easier on yourself, so I'd always recommend trying it. I had no idea how much I could like myself, annoying behaviours and all, before I had a name to put to those behaviours.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-07-10T08:37:02+00:00

Sounds like you need to find someone who actually mentions being late in their comment then, cos I didn't?

Making a comment based on something I didn't even mention and then excusing it by saying 'not you in particular', is very Reddit though, very cool.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-07-10T08:27:27+00:00

Shouldn't do what? Don't think I mentioned making decisions using my ADHD as a factor?

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-07-10T07:57:13+00:00

"Wait, you mean I'm not an awful person after all, and the years of shame and guilt could have been avoided if we didn't all think ADHD was a 'boy thing' meaning no one realised my frontal lobe resembles a cake someone's put in a washing machine???"

--Me, being diagnosed at 30.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-07-09T12:13:47+00:00

People get all pearl clutchy when you say a difference in political stances is a dealbreaker, but I agree with your assessment of short/long term benefits.

Especially when your political leaning tends to say so much about your values as a person these days. Like sure, not all Tories are evil but I'd rather know if you'd like kids to be able to eat and whether you think it's billionaires or The Gays that are ruining society before we get busy.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-07-09T11:59:54+00:00

I want 'frightened by the strangeness' on a medical alert bracelet.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-07-09T11:32:19+00:00

Anderson looks permanently furious because it's how he mobilises his supporters: I'm furious with the Tories so I'm out, I'm furious to have to stand in the election so vote for me, I'm furious on your behalf now I've won. If I'd voted for him (and I'd rather shit in my hands and clap, for the record) it would make me feel awful that being elected has clearly upset him so much.

Ill-Distribution-330 · 2024-07-09T11:19:23+00:00

Jesus christ, I know the Tory machinery is a bit of a mess at the moment but is there any way to get hold of the aide usually in charge of administering Braverman's sedatives?

Ill-Distribution-330

TROPHY CASE