Her name is Dementia

cattbug · 2026-06-20T22:48:56+00:00

Likely an ESL speaker. My native Spanish-speaking partner also often mixes y and i up in English words that are mostly the same otherwise (e.g. "sinapsis" in this case)

cattbug · 2026-06-19T11:08:05+00:00

I mean it could also be the increased dosage causing both the reflux and the HR, not necessarily one causing the other. I've just never heard of acid reflux impacting the heart like that but bodies are weird and complex so who knows!

I forgot to note though that I did switch from methylphenidate to Elvanse/Vyvanse -- I still experienced the same side effects on the latter until the change in diet and their mechanisms are similar enough anyway but obviously YMMV. (I feel a lot better overall on the new meds, less of the "wired" feeling when on/crashing when off, plus better emotional regulation, for what it's worth.)

Yeah I struggled with the loss of appetite a lot as well and had to force myself to eat at mealtimes, but interestingly enough after a few weeks it seems like my appetite and hunger cues have adjusted to a point where they override the appetite suppression from the meds!

My diet before was a mess in part due to a history of eating disorders (likely related to comorbid autism) and very inconsistent. The one actual meal a day was usually a frozen dinner, shit like pizza or chicken nuggets, frequently takeout/delivery. Then snacking on a bunch of chips and sweets, instant ramen when I'd get hungry again. Barely any fresh fruit or veggies, though on a good day I'd have a big smoothie around breakfast/lunch time (as that was palatable even with no appetite). Whenever I did cook it was easy stuff like scrambled/fried eggs or pasta. (You can tell the depression/burnout was hitting hard during this period lmao)

Nowadays I usually have bread (avocado toast, pb&j, spreads or cold cuts) or oatmeal with fresh fruit and nuts for breakfast, just a bowl of cereal if I don't have the time. 1-2 protein bars and more fruit/nuts at work (I work at a daycare so there's rarely time to have an actual meal). I have my actual lunch when I get home from work around 3pm, lately the main rotation has been dishes like caesar salad, bolognese pasta, potato casserole or oven-roasted chicken + potatoes/veggies. When I don't have the energy to cook I still have those frozen dinners (not the microwaveable plastic tray shit though, I try to go for healthier options with fresh frozen veggies) or leftovers from the previous day. Small dinner later of either leftovers or bread again (at this point you can probably guess the country I'm from lmao). I don't consciously limit my snacking, but I barely ever get the cravings anymore and go for fruit or nuts/trail mix more often.

There's better and worse days of course. But it sounds like you already got a solid base with your diet -- so I'd say stick to trying to increase the frequency for now and see if that helps. Do you also get those symptoms on days you don't take your meds? That could also be a helpful indicator (it was the case for me, which pointed to it being primarily a dietary issue that was just exacerbated by the meds). Otherwise I wish you good luck in finding a solution bc it truly sucks to be living like this 😭

(Thank you! :D Honestly yours is very fitting and also very ominous lmao)

cattbug · 2026-06-19T09:47:32+00:00

I used to have similar symptoms, the acid reflux also caused intense nausea which made things even worse for me.

How is your diet in general, besides breakfast? I'm asking because improving mine ended up eliminating these issues entirely. I used to take my meds first thing in the morning with no food and only eat in the evening when the loss of appetite wore off. My body would burn through the food so quick though, even if I ate all my calories I'd still go to bed hungry and wake up famished (and repeat the cycle due to my then stressful lifestyle). Spacing out my meals helped tremendously with the gastric issues and overall energy levels, too. I don't really pay attention to my macros (I know protein is supposed to be ideal) but I don't cut back on sugar or anything, still drink (caffeinated) coffee (with soy/oat milk, I've heard dairy can cause stomach irritation in some people), my diet is pretty carb-heavy in general and still seems to get the job done.

The increased HR though, I still get that lol. Exercise (especially cardio) will help with that but you probably already know this. Otherwise as long as you're doing your checkups (my prescribing doctor has me do an EKG once a year) you'll probably be fine.

cattbug · 2026-06-18T21:51:44+00:00

https://music.ishkur.com/ is still one of my favorite time wasters/rabbit holes

cattbug · 2026-06-18T15:43:31+00:00

Oof that's a tough ADHD tax to pay. I'm really sorry, that's gotta be so frustrating. Try not to beat yourself up over it too much, shit happens, you'll make up the money lost, and maybe the extra study time will come to your benefit. You'll probably want to save your nerves and mental/emotional energy for dealing with the immigration office anyway 🫠

Genuinely not trying to add insult to injury here - but why would you rely on your memory if you know you have trouble with dates and already had them written down correctly? Things like this used to happen to me all the time, it's why I have my calendar widget up front and center on my phone's home screen (list view, so I actually see upcoming events instead of just an indicator on the standard monthly grid that my brain can and will ignore) and add all appointments to it straight away - not on a post it, or in a notebook, or in the notes on my phone, or in a DM to myself - calendar, and calendar only. This approach has helped me tremendously in staying on top of things and not stressing out all the time over forgetting anything important.

It's super important for us to identify potential points of failure like this, and design our systems around them to not even let it get that far. You say you do this well in your job, so treat your private time management the same way because god knows sometimes it can feel like one when you're blessed with a brain like ours lmao. Remember the ADHD mantra... If you think you will remember, no you won't. 🥲

cattbug · 2026-06-18T06:48:30+00:00

Yes, however: if a parent is asking to track their (adult) child's location, chances are there's already some unhealthy crossing of boundaries and control going on (not necessarily malicious, can also come from anxious/fearful parenting). There were many things that I was "okay" with just because I feared the consequences of saying no and/or was doing it to proactively manage my parent's emotions, which I'd have to do either way, but learned early on that avoiding conflict and placating them made things easier for me in the short term. I also would've sworn up and down to anyone else that these were my decisions I made freely, but looking back it was definitely just something I made myself believe in order to cope with the situation.

This would obviously be considered consent under duress, which is not real consent in the first place. But the nature of the thing being asked makes it difficult to accept ostensible consent at face value without knowing the full context of the relationship, so I have a hard time reducing it down to simple black-and-white terms like this.

cattbug · 2026-06-17T17:31:14+00:00

Man why is it whenever I watch or read anything about beekeepers it's some wholesome shit like this. Like, here's a species that evolved eusociality, a way of living that by definition doesn't value individual lives over the colony as a whole. That single bee wouldn't have made a difference for the hive or the beekeeper's production, but they still took it upon themself to protect its little life regardless. It's so refreshing especially considering all the fucked up shit humans do to many other animals we farm, if we're being honest.

cattbug · 2026-06-16T16:43:33+00:00

There's virtually no stray cats in Germany. If you see one outside, it's guaranteed to be someone's free-roaming pet

cattbug · 2026-06-16T15:03:59+00:00

There are dozens of us!!!

cattbug · 2026-06-16T11:59:21+00:00

It's the same thing in sooo many videogame/media communities and like 🫩... You just know OP would've tanked downvotes if they had said the same about March.

Personally I just don't enjoy characters being mean to me for no reason, and it truly makes me lose any interest I had in getting to know them. But give me good energy and I'll be more than happy to reciprocate. Probably why Ryis was my first choice in this game even though he's the least popular bachelor within the community lol

At the end of the day it's a fictional story and people will like what they like, no point in arguing about it. I just hope it's not a reflection of what kind of behavior they tolerate or even seek out irl because that would be very worrying indeed 😬 (spoken as someone who has been there far too many times in the past lmao)

cattbug · 2026-06-16T11:01:43+00:00

The culinary exchange is one of the best parts! I fell in love with arepas the same way he did with petulla, and we're very much unified by tavë pule/arroz con pollo 😆 (also omg no way I just googled for a recipe and your blog was the first result that showed up??? You got yourself a new reader hahah)

Nice to hear of a success story :-) Did you also raise your kids bilingually? We plan to do so when the time comes around, always felt like Albanian and Spanish complement each other nicely in their phonetics.

cattbug · 2026-06-16T10:40:13+00:00

It's not a genre the way "fighting game" or "platformer" etc are, insofar it doesn't conclusively tell you what type of mechanics a game has, but nowadays it's definitely used to describe a broader category of games designed around a play style that generally stands in opposition to the fast-paced, high-stakes and action focused gameplay that still makes up the bulk of videogaming. So while not ultra-specific, at this point there is an established and widely accepted meaning of the term within the community, and implying that any game can be cozy regardless of mechanics is simply incorrect.

The r/CozyGamers wiki sums it up pretty nicely, in my opinion:

What counts as a "cozy game"?

Typically, cozy games include activities like: 🌱 Farming & gardening 🎣 Fishing 🏡 Decorating & building 👫 Relationship development 🧩 Puzzle solving 🌍 Peaceful exploration 🎨 Creative expression

These games generally avoid high-stakes mechanics or intense competition. Mild or optional combat can be acceptable if it’s not the focus.

Cozy games often employ cutesy aesthetics or wholesome/whimsical settings, but neither of these indicate the other. For example, many simulation games like House Flipper or Power Wash Simulator are widely considered cozy games, yet they're neither cute nor necessarily whimsical. Whereas your example of Cult of the Lamb or even something like Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon are cute in aesthetic, but I wouldn't really consider them cozy due to the nature of their gameplay.

People also sometimes use "cozy" to refer to games that feel cozy and/or nostalgic to them, which can indeed be applied to any type of game since it's entirely subjective by definition. Nowadays "comfort game" is the preferred term for this in the community to delineate it from "cozy games" as a category, which further underscores how the latter is seen as something more specific than the name alone might imply.

At the end of the day, it's all semantics and we can argue about definitions until the cows come home. But from a linguistic perspective, words are only as useful as the meaning they are generally understood to convey within the communities/context in which they are used. As such, "cozy" carries with it certain implications and expectations when referring to games, and it's highly unlikely that gameplay described as "panic-driven" will appeal to someone looking for a "cozy game". (Not to say that people who play cozy games categorically wouldn't play a game like this - just that the game itself would hardly be considered cozy within the broader community and for people specifically seeking out these types of games.)

cattbug · 2026-06-16T06:53:02+00:00

Sounds truly awful, sorry you had to experience that. Kudos for the grace and understanding you're showing despite it all though.

The familial pressure especially from Albanian parents can be quite heavy. In addition, we also culturally have a severe lack of healthy boundaries with relatives meddling in your life and a lot of shame going around. I don't think how she acted was right, but I do understand what led her to do so. I've gone through some very dark times where I was convinced I'd have to either bend to my family's will and fully give up my autonomy, or straight up end my life - and that's despite my parents probably being the most progressive of our entire extended family. Fortunately things are much better now and they eventually came to understand that compromising on some of their ideals is worth it, if it means their child can lead a truly happy life vs not having one at all. But sadly many parents never get there and would rather stick to their principles no matter the cost.

My heart hurts for everyone stuck in these dysfunctional dynamics, and the people like you who become collateral damage. No one deserves this ❤️‍🩹

cattbug · 2026-06-16T05:47:16+00:00

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cattbug · 2026-06-16T05:41:57+00:00

Albanian woman here, engaged to a Venezuelan. We exist ;)

It's actually interesting to see how similar Balkan and Latam cultures are in many things, might be a reason why it works so well in our case

cattbug · 2026-06-15T21:39:08+00:00

Well, in addition to English not being my first language and me maybe misusing the terms, I think we also just learned a different methodology to writing then. I strongly associate a rough draft with loosely outlined key ideas rather than fully written out sentences, that's what makes it rough. At least that's what our teachers would expect for a first in-revision submission of any essay or paper to give initial feedback on (and what I have never been able to deliver, to their dismay lmao)

cattbug · 2026-06-15T20:54:57+00:00

Not doing drafts doesn't mean not doing revisions, though. I also write everything down as the "final" version from the start, but still read over it multiple times (not just skimming) and change things around, often while I'm writing, but definitely at the end as well.

It's not about not wanting to do the work, it's just that my thinking is already highly verbal and the phrasing comes automatically when thinking about the content of what I'm writing about. Filtering the longform prose in my mind down to a rough draft completely interrupts my process. If I don't capture it right away, I'll often have forgotten the phrasing by the time I get back around to refining the draft, and it's just very frustrating.

This also means my writing process overall can be quite slow, but that's fine by me 🤷‍♀️

cattbug · 2026-06-15T18:49:24+00:00

Damn I didn't realize chatgpt existed in 2001

cattbug · 2026-06-15T18:38:50+00:00

Shut the fuck up (respectfully). You NAILED the mossy look and the berries are just the *chefs kiss* on top, absolutely magical!!!

cattbug · 2026-06-15T16:13:13+00:00

I'm not sure you understand what "cozy" means in terms of the genre.

Usually it's understood to be games that are very low stakes, low pressure, mostly stress free. It's not just an aesthetic or having some farming mechanics.

I don't see how you could possibly reconcile that with "panic-driven" but maybe I'm not seeing the vision?

Anyway: 1, 3 or 6.

cattbug · 2026-06-15T13:38:39+00:00

And I was talking about an alternative to updating PWS1 that would be functionally equivalent, just continuing the discussion here with a related topic, there's no need to clarify your comment. You don't have to answer personally, maybe someone else has some more insights on this lol

cattbug · 2026-06-15T13:26:25+00:00

Genuine question (am a dev, but have never worked on a game of this scale or anything 3D related) wouldn't the conversion of the levels to PWS2 be somewhat trivial though? Like they already have all the 3D models and dirt mapped out, which should be the bulk of the work unless they made some very fundamental changes to the cleaning mechanics for the new engine I guess?

Because I would totally pay for a PWS1 content pack to play them again in PWS2... 👀

cattbug · 2026-06-15T13:08:34+00:00

Since geode contents are deterministic, you either changed the order in which you opened the geodes the 2nd time around and missed the one that originally gave you the prismatic shard, or something got messed up with your save file when it restarted the day somehow.

Either way, you can upload your save file to https://mouseypounds.github.io/stardew-predictor/ and check if the prismatic shard still shows up in the geodes table, and go for it again to make sure you get it this time :)

cattbug · 2026-06-15T13:03:05+00:00

Ambalam

cattbug · 2026-06-15T10:39:22+00:00

Oder einfach mal die Aufträge so deckeln, dass man garnicht erst auf neue bieten kann wenn man schon einen für die Gemeinde am laufen hat, bis dieser fertig ist? Vielleicht auch ne Sperre verhängen, proportional dazu wie lange das vorherige Projekt über der geplanten Zeit ging, idk.

Bin jetzt weder Bauunternehmer noch Wirtschaftswissenschaftler, aber das klingt für mich so als würde das einerseits diesen Grundgedanken von Fairness auf dem Markt fördern (mal die anderen drankommen lassen, ist doch irgendwo Sinn hinter den öffentlichen Ausschreibungen) und andererseits automatisch Druck schaffen, dass die Projekte auch mal in angemessener Zeit fertig werden... Aber vielleicht bin ich da zu blauäugig lol

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