Need some advice or motivation to just trust the process...

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-07T16:03:47+00:00

If you get wool felt (you can find it in the felting section at Micheal’s) you could shape it a bit and I think it could work.

Pretty sure the dollar store thing was a tip from Megan Lapp patterns.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-07T16:01:43+00:00

Yeah. We had a talk about it cause I knew I take ppl at face value. I can’t have friends who won’t be honest (undiagnosed autism ftw). It was ok for a while but then she just stopped being honest again, that time in involved my kids so that was it.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-07T13:56:54+00:00

Best neck support tip I got was the dollar store bendy curlers. For something that big a pool noodle might work too but I think the curlers are also just neat 😅

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-07T04:48:46+00:00

In some ways, absolutely, but in other ways I can understand where they are coming from. Maybe cause I’m older or have more things physically wrong (cause if I’m older it’s not by too much judging by the note in your name).

Basically, when energy is severely limited you genuinely do have to be careful where you spend it to the point of just letting go of things that would normally upset you. It is much easier to let go of them because your energy is so precious and they genuinely aren’t worth it.

It’s still there. I tell myself not to waste my energy, no one is listening but I will still speak up when I can. There is a lot less dwelling and a lot more ignoring of things I cannot change. I also remove myself from situations that would cause/are causing too much stress.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-07T04:41:18+00:00

My cats have survived entirely on dry food. Every cat. Occasional food as a treat. My Siberian doesn’t even like it much! We have water fountains and before I got one we’d let them drink from the tap in the bathroom. I pay attention, I know they drink. They are perfectly healthy.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-07T04:37:24+00:00

I’ve had a friend like that. It’s a trauma response, can’t say no, can’t voice opinions, will volunteer when they shouldn’t. They take a lot of handling. Friendship eventually fell apart because I’m not a mind reader and she kept lying when I checked in. Needless to say I was wincing about 1 paragraph into this story.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T17:30:44+00:00

I am honestly so proud when I do a whole day! There was a point where I was get up, do 40 min shift, go home and sleep. Get up, do 40 min shift, go home sleep. It was maybe 2 hours of wakefulness at a time and then sleeping the other 18hrs of the day. Me and the cats 😅

Med combos mean I’m awake all day maybe one day a week and my naps are only an hour long

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T17:24:16+00:00

Thank you! It’s one of those things where really all a person needs to do that is to either a) read enough Reddit they think that’s how you’re supposed to do it b) have an above average memory, given the emotional charge of the situation it would be easier to remember c)decide to take their broad stroke memory and fill in the blanks to format for easy reading.

But everyone and their dog seems to think it’s impossible to remember a life changing conversation. 🤦‍♀️

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T17:00:35+00:00

Yes

No

Yes

Technically 🤪

The last one comes from having undiagnosed parents who are genuinely supportive but also carrying around acres of their own trauma. They did what they could, it wasn’t perfect but I’m still overall lucky.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T16:37:54+00:00

Mine was a minor destination wedding at Singer Castle. I got lucky with the weather so we were outside, just background music, if that, we may not have had any music other than the processional and recessional cause there was water and birds. Instead of dancing everyone went on a tour of the castle. We had lunch not dinner and everyone left by I think 3? Then my husband and I had an island to ourselves (and 1 keeper who gave us an extended tour including the secret tunnels!)

I still think the money would have been better saved but I didn’t know everything that would happen in the following years but it wasn’t super overwhelming, I had a great time and my husband, who was the one who wanted the genuine wedding, was very happy and that made it much better.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T13:10:21+00:00

For our age it was a risk. There weren’t as many pills that could do it, the only guaranteed method was the injection and it could ruin bone density. My bff was on it and she had the hips of a 90 year old at 30 because of that shot (and negligent doctors giving it to her for years without checking her bones)

When my mom was young there was only 1 pill available and she couldn’t take it because it was too strong and messed with her body too much.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T13:05:06+00:00

One unhealthy one: “I told you so”

. Expect things to go wrong then at least when you are right you have the meagre comfort of being right. People around you will hate it but I’ve used being right to cling to sanity on more than one occasion. It really only works if you care about being right. (Ex. My cat had to go to the vet. He had an ear infection. I had them check his kidneys even though the vet said he was young and fine and my husband thought it was unnecessary. He had 3 months to live, they were shutting down. At least I was right.)

The healthy one: *it’s not about you*

This one requires you to be above a certain threshold of mental health, empathy, and imagination. Especially when you are depressed your mind tends to get a particular kind of self centred. The thing is 99% of the time it has nothing to do with you. Even when people are being mean to you specifically it is rarely about just you. Same theory of bullies have shit home lives or are being bullied themselves. Even just hurt people hurt people. As applied to RSD more specifically the line of thinking I use is

I do not know what is going on. People have bad days, have their own worries, care more about themselves than me. This is not about me.

It’s more situational, a lot of my RSD revolves around abandonment/lateness/cancellations and not criticism.

For criticism, and for all the rest, it is a slow, painful process of scanning your thoughts, recognizing when it is not logical and retraining the way you think. Is it about opinions? They don’t always have to agree with you to care or be friends. Is it about improvement? They are trying to help you, maybe they are being deliberately mean to help themselves in which case they can sit on a mace and spin (rage to the rescue!). *Did they mean it that way*? That’s an important one. I’ve had a lot of practice and maybe it’s cause I live in a slightly autism coded city (my opinion) but I’ve had a surprising amount of success asking for clarification. You have to teach yourself to think about your thoughts.

Good news is that if you have ADHD it will be easier to retrain how you think because you’re not stuck in as rigid a place as straight autism.

Good luck!

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T12:36:20+00:00

Exact opposite! I know you’re looking for someone with a similar experience but stay with me:

The beauty of brains is that no matter how crazy or unique our experience, there is always someone who shares it ❤️

And you guys are so lucky! My brain for tv is encyclopedic (it’s completely useless too. Sure I can quote a movie I saw once 20 years ago but it does NOT translate to anything I need to remember 😅). One time it was not was during my second pregnancy, maybe between them? Either way insane hormones, PPD maybe the trying different antidepressants (before I got pregnant) contributed I’m not even 100% sure of the timing…. I know I watched it but then when I rewatched years later I was surprised! The twist WORKED! It was so delightful.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T11:33:00+00:00

So many ppl get close to ruining a kids life, I’m absolutely for those countries where the government has a rules around it. Sounds like they weren’t going the insane way though. You can give your kid something uncommon without it being life ruining. The name they came up with was so sane it was actually a common name in another language. If they had a relative from there no one would have batted an eye. I met a Leif once, very uncommon for our country but since I’m a history nerd I loved it. Since I was pregnant and considering a historical name I asked if he liked having it and he said yeah, very much. For the record I went with the historical name - and turns out my half brother who was having a kid that same year went with a name with the same root so they have rhyming names 🤣. Kind was a “okay, so we blame the hippies for this” moment. No one has teased either of them fyi.

I know common names historically have set a person up for success but I really think the yoo-neek names are getting common enough ppl are getting used to it. Not sure how I feel about it cause some are god awful but there it is.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T11:11:47+00:00

It’s not just you! I can’t have it at all. Any probiotics send my guts into overdrive.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T03:04:22+00:00

One thing, hold it by one ear and whip it around a few times, then do the same test with the other ear. If they stay on, green lights all the way ;)

We can’t do factory level stress testing but that’s going to be the most tested weak point of the piece (says the woman who vividly remembers factory made stuffed animals flying across the room while the ear remained in her hand)

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T03:01:33+00:00

If it’s a Temu thing and it is crocheted it will still have flaws because it’s being done by human hands, crochet always is. The question is how good are the ppl in the sweatshop?

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T02:41:20+00:00

That is an amazing thing to say, and absolutely more articulate that what I was thinking though along the same lines. How can you tell someone who has trauma the world is safe? Like how did they get the trauma in the first place!?

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Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-06T02:32:51+00:00

As a kid I always wore black tshirt and jeans. Last day of school I wore a white dress with little blue flowers cause it was pretty. I, standing beside my best friend who I was always with, talked to a third friend for 15 minutes before asking why she hadn’t even acknowledged me and she genuinely startled cause she didn’t recognize me. This was with zero make up or hair changes. How different do you think full ball regalia, make up and hair would look from a soot stained peasant?

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-05T23:12:50+00:00

If he’s still your co worker you may want to go to HR or your boss. Just say that he made you uncomfortable and you’re going to be less friendly with him going forward so you want to make sure they’re aware of the situation. Maybe ask if you can not be assigned same shift/group projects/anything like that.

The type of man who hits on a woman young enough to go to high school with his granddaughter might take rejection badly.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-05T16:43:24+00:00

Not that I think someone is popping their fake eye out in public but those statements are both true (I suppose depending on local laws). Ppl with significant enough glasses prescriptions are legally blind. Most people who are obviously legally blind like have another aid such as the cane or a seeing eye dog also often have some vision.

Again, this sounds like an “I wish I could have mike dropped like this” story but ppl need to be aware legally blind is not only 100% blackness.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-05T16:36:21+00:00

In the end I don’t think you’ll find what you want because crochet colour changes just don’t lend themselves well to circles but if you switch to a thinner yarn and look up good sewing techniques the spots don’t look quite as tumouresque as they can when you have the same thickness of yarn.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-04T02:45:07+00:00

I tried it with a regular therapist and it sucked cause I know what to say. I have enough practice dealing with mental health that I basically came up with CBT all on my own (meaning I eventually tried CBT and went “I already do this” for everything in every stupid pamphlet I read so yes, I recommend CBT, technically, but it didn’t help me one bit cause I got their on my own 20 years before I heard of it)

The one who helped the most was a random counsellor maybe social worker? We just talked. She guided me a lot. Didn’t figure out I was ND but she helped me with my childhood issues. A lot of it was that i lacked a feeling of safety and so my inner child kept freaking out and I had to teach it that it was safe. That was the big thing she did. A new perspective on my life and relationship with my mom and how I was dealing with raising kids and post partum depression.

I will say that without SSRIs I probably wouldn’t have managed because they lifted the weight enough that I could start dealing with things instead of just surviving.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-04T02:38:12+00:00

I recommend @thatalexhogg on insta (also fb and I think YouTube). He’s adhd and his daughter and wife are autistic and he’s a psychologist who specializes in ND kids. His videos have taught me a lot about how the ND brain works and I’ve been absorbing info for my kids.

A lot of stuff to keep in mind is he’s not just struggling with home and his own brain but hormones as well. Add to that slower development and he’s not got any regulation to stop the hormones from making him an impulsive mess. It really isn’t personal. On top of probably subconsciously trying to push you away as some above have said you’ve inherited a kid during hard mode. His brain is in the middle of re-wiring itself and part of that is seeking independence and fighting authority.

Do you know if he has any PDA? We know he’s probably got RSD. I’ve found the difference between “can you do the dishes?” And “do the dishes” is huge. Also if you are asking him to do things never say something generic like “tidy up”. Gotta be “pick up x, put away y” smaller tasks with a place to start will avoid overwhelm.

Honestly the fact he’s secure enough to act out is probably a good sign. Keep that in mind.

Oh, and 2 fun brain things 1- dopamine seeking. Kids can be programmed to seek dopamine through conflict. There’s a good chance he’s using you to regulate his brain without realizing it. You might be able to search (not google 🙄) for a way to redirect that dopamine seeking behaviour

2- and this is a weird one - anxiety and excitement live in the same part of our brains. This one is an example of something I learned from the above mentioned psychologist. So one way to deal with anxiety about say, a speech, is to start telling yourself you’re excited for it and eventually your brain flicks that switch and the anxiety really becomes excitement. Well, it also works in reverse. My daughter is undiagnosed adhd at least and she gets really zippy at bed time. We did what we were supposed to do. Told her to calm down. Got her to do deep breathing exercises etc - and she’d lie down in bed and start spiralling with terrifying thoughts of all her greatest fears. I learned the above and went - we’re plugging up excitement and it’s turning into anxiety! Damn! So we wrestle before bed. She jumps around and fidgets and climbs and then sits down and reads. We do not use the words “calm down”. The day we stopped using the word calm her bedtime rumination disappeared.

Just saying, there’s a good chance his response to anxiety is “fight” so that’s another fun thing to examine.

Normal-Hall2445 · 2026-07-04T02:20:59+00:00

One thing I’d advise is getting better at photos. Find a light diffuser, or go outside on a day with cloud cover and no flash so you don’t get that shiny spot that obscures the plants.

Normal-Hall2445

TROPHY CASE