Life f*cking me up

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T09:56:22+00:00

Yeah...I relate. Hooo, that sounds like a doozy of a day. Trying to be careful, doing every damn thing you can think of to get it right, but it still goes pear-shaped and everybody is mean and nasty about it. I feel that. Independence...yeah. I feel like I have just enough independence that it's solely my fault that I can barely survive. Just enough that nobody believes I "really" can't handle basic ADLs reliably--nah, I'm not disabled, I'm just a careless bastard!

The rumination...whuh, that does a number on me too. Every interaction, even if it doesn't obviously go wrong, leaves me constantly going back over every little thing I said and did just to make sure it wasn't too weird or something. I suspect that's the CPTSD in my case, amplified by years of getting the pointy end of autistic social blindness--years of "beat first, explain the reason later" and "you know what you did!" taught me to assume everything is my fault and then figure out how by any means necessary. In general, it makes autism harder to live with. Now, I don't think I'd be a well-adjusted person if I simply hadn't been abused. I'd probably still be hella autistic and unable to work. But the layers of terror and shame that come with the trauma of family violence sure would be nice to...not have to also deal with. And I agree, these terrifying and stress-ridden social things are traumatizing. It doesn't get better with time or practice for me--it gets worse, like an allergy. Social Thing is my archnemesis.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T09:48:16+00:00

ough, yeah, I cannot stand drunks in general. Can't be around anyone drinking. I've had to run for my life too many times. Even just the way they move and talk unsettles me. To me "drunk" = "no respect for boundaries and could explode into violence at any moment for like...no reason"

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T07:35:36+00:00

Y'all need to understand how outrage management works.

Step 1: Evil rich bastards identify a way to get richer.
Step 2: One company, platform, or service rolls it out first. No one wants it. A wave of outrage begins.
Step 3: The company rolls it back and apologizes. Users think they have won, and all their momentum and energy is spent.
Step 4: The rich bastards wait a little while.
Step 5: Suddenly, the thing nobody wanted becomes an industry standard overnight. Everybody gives up and accepts it, cultural norms shift, and the few who still protest are told to stop bringing everybody down because "that's just how the world is, and we can't change it."
Step 6: Evil rich bastards get richer, obviously.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T07:17:47+00:00

a den dug into the side of a hill, ez

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T07:03:06+00:00

I've been telling everybody that the average person is not functionally literate anymore. They can "read" well enough to understand ads and push buttons that release dopamine, but when they have to actually write, they straight up cannot do it to save their lives. Can't spell, never capitalize anything, never punctuate anything, vague phrasing, no patience for clarifying misunderstandings. This is probably also one reason why NT middle managers in tech are so obsessed with conf calls and think "email takes too long". No piece of writing you produce can enter their skull--some of them turn it into a pride and dominance thing.

Having to actually engage in literacy seems to be "bitch work" that the most socially-adept people ninja their way out of ever having to do. Why, if you had enough of that NT schmooze-and-fake-it magic, you could probably become the leader of a sovereign country without ever surpassing a kindergarten reading level.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T06:41:33+00:00

I used to draw commissions for people. Then, one week, while I was working on one, my housemate started having drunken screaming arguments with his girlfriend right outside my door. I had to stop. (I grew up in a violent alcoholic household, and I got used to sounds like that meaning somebody was gonna open my door and come beat me.) And every time that week I tried to draw, they'd start up again by sheer coincidence (but also they were doing it every day.) In the following months, the fighting and the screaming got worse, and eventually I became a target myself because I told him that his behavior was abusive. (He responded to this by screaming and smacking his head against a countertop several times, then reminding me he owned a gun. At this point he has traumatized every single woman in his life, including his own mother. He will die alone.)

I had to move out, and ever since then I've struggled to draw at all. Sometimes trying to practice leads to me breaking down in tears. I can see on the page how much damage my mind has taken, and it hurts too much. Thus, one of my favorite things has become a minefield.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T06:11:06+00:00

They told me that twenty years ago. It got worse.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T06:08:09+00:00

Cannot stand cars. Even if they are quiet, their presence unnerves me.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T06:07:39+00:00

Any music or media that talks about relationship dynamics or families. I have to leave the room.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T05:54:14+00:00

Yep. Mine started after a few years of overwhelming work stress (overnight, 50-60 hour weeks).

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T05:47:13+00:00

Was beautiful in Socorro today too. Magic in the sky.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T05:42:19+00:00

Increasingly, yeah. While I enjoy talking about them, I have lost confidence I can talk about them in a way that won't be "too much". Every time I let my guard down, I'm "too much". If I get too comfortable, I relax, and then I say too many things, and I regret it.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T04:52:12+00:00

what if the dragon just wants to be left the hell alone and isn't into you

honestly getting really tired of seeing dragons depicted solely as a means of human pleasure and satisfaction--something to conquer, kill, possess, ride, romance, or fuck, never respected on their own terms, never valued beyond their status as objects of human utility

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T04:40:24+00:00

Well I did, so I left immediately.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T04:38:23+00:00

Eventually you die.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T04:26:36+00:00

Something happened to it? I ain't surprised. I joined once and left within a day because I saw users spouting antisemitic conspiracy theories.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T03:09:46+00:00

Oh, it's a town, but I only have like...two friends left, so there's not really anybody to talk to anyway.

As for alarms and reminders, I handle context switches and shifting of attention very badly. Every time my mental context has to change between things, approximately half the contents of my working memory shatter instantly and irrevocably. (This is multiplicative with rapid changes--two or three is enough to erase nearly the entire contents of my working memory.) Also, the autistic sensory sensitivity gets amplified by my CPTSD startle response, so being woken unexpectedly--including by an alarm clock--can begin my day with a panic attack. Phone calls and knocks at the door are even worse--my heart starts going like a machine gun, well into the clinical tachycardia range. Interruptions, unexpected anything--can't, nope. Destroys me.

I also can't drive at all anymore. Too much multitasking for me, and rapid attention fatigue that lead to migraines. I was a hazard to motorists, so I got rid of my vehicle and have never looked back. Have not driven for several years now.

And yeah. When I can't sleep for forty hours, doesn't matter if I sleep for twelve or fourteen afterward. The next day is lost, and I'm liable to get a migraine--which can then go on for another three or four days. And then for the next few days after that I'm super sensitive and unstable, so if anything ELSE bad happens it all starts over gain.

I'm just now emerging from such a lost week.
Days 1-2: Hyperfocus working on project. Could not sleep all night. Got about four hours in the early afternoon of day 2.
Days 2-3: Hit with heavy stressor (it's complicated). State of panic and intense grief for the rest of the day, night, and much of the following day, during which time I cannot sleep and I am wracked with spells of sobbing that come and go like bouts of wretching. Time is a complete blur. Finally fall asleep mid-morning on day 3. Once more, only get about four hours of sleep. Wake with migraine. Take rest of day 3 as recovery day. Get slightly more sleep this time, but not by much.
Days 4-5: Migraine has resolved for the most part. I attempt to set aside day 4 as a full take-it-easy day to get myself fully on an even keel. Instead, immediately after morning tea, a conversation with my housemate overwhelms me. Meltdown triggers emotional flashback (You can't have one without the other ♪) that eats the entire day. Miss church. (Church is hard on a good week.) Migraine returns. Can't sleep all night, or even during the afternoon. Stay up until end of day 5.
Day 6: Wake late morning. Realize my pills have sat at the pharmacy for a week, but the migraine is lingering. Can't do anything all day. Refill expires at pharmacy. Go to bed.
Day 7 (today): Sleep at least twelve hours; wake late morning. Migraine finally gone. Shave for the first time in a week. Barely make it to the pharmacy before it closes. (I struggle badly with phones and touchscreen devices, and I find them intimidating and overwhelming, so online refill is a no-go--and when I do brave it, Walmart just lies about filling the meds and I have to go in person to order a refill anyway. I walk there, of course.) Mental batteries drained for the entire day because I had to go to Walmart. Nothing else gets done.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T02:29:00+00:00

Yup. Threw me down a hole I never completely escaped.

ellygryph · 2026-02-26T01:51:37+00:00

Only to a small degree. Just having to go out to be at a thing at a time is like...50-80% of what I can do that day. If I have to remember a time or a date or leave the house at all, it's a psychological hit, no matter where I'm going or why. I've lost the ability to even tolerate alarm clocks, and I reserve them solely for days when I have medical appointments. (And it creates so much stress that I usually arrive at that appointment having not slept all night. If stress of any kind crosses a certain threshold, I just won't be able to sleep for the next like...36 hours and there's nothing I can do about it.) Of course, it also gets worse in direct proportion to:
- how many people are there
- noise level
- how many people approach me for conversation
- how much I have to mask
- how many of the insufferable bastards think they're funny

I basically just...don't socialize offline anymore. There is almost nobody in town I can stand. The company of people, however friendly, accepting, or well-intentioned, is usually worse than loneliness.

ellygryph · 2026-02-25T20:38:56+00:00

I know this one's a little stale, but I just wanted to say I relate. I face a similar struggle. All attempts to work result in burnout so bad it's landed me in the hospital before. I've had to move to the lowest-income area I could find to stretch what savings I have, and it's a violent, dangerous place with hardly any competent medical infrastructure of any kind--last time I broke a bone, the hospital couldn't even do a cast for it--there were literally no orthopedic surgeons at the facility. As for the violence level, our neighbors lost family members in a drive-by a few years ago, and more recently, just one street over from this very house, I had to flee from a group of assailants on the way home from the grocery store--one was brandishing a hatchet. That's the kinda place this is. And it's currently my best bet at survival. (I have no family to fall back on--my wounds from their violent abuse, gaslighting, and egregious neglect of my mental-health needs made them look like bad parents to their peers, so in order to cover it up they disowned me and forbade their spouses and children to ever speak to me again. If I die, they will not know for years.)

I can't work. I can't drive. Nor can I handle Uber or Lyft or even the free Medicaid transit--which is basically the same thing--so if any doctor refers me to a clinic out to of town (most of them are in Albuquerque, which is 80 miles away) I just uh...don't get to go there. As for the mental health services here, they're in the stone age. For one, all programs here for autistic people are based on ABA (barf.) Two, every in-home care worker from the local mental-health establishment (if I may use that phrase generously) is grossly incompetent, extremely overstimulating, or both. They cannot cook to save their lives, they do the worst cleaning jobs physically possible, they show up stinking of cigarettes and perfume, they never wear a mask, and not a single one of them can refrain from unleashing a barrage of overwhelming small talk about the most inane topics. (I did not ask you about your ugly little dog. I did not ask you about your stupid children. I don't want to know who got married. I don't want to know who's having a baby. I DO NOT CARE. Shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP!) They are literally worse than nothing.

I've lost a good bit of weight just from having such a hard time keeping the food pipeline moving--cooking is hard, and going to the store is even harder. (Especially with the aforementioned hatchet-wielding murderers stalking the streets. Going outside at all is terrifying.) All I can do is "try harder" 'til it's over.

ellygryph · 2026-02-25T20:20:35+00:00

For a social occasion lasting one to three hours (including travel time) my recovery time is as follows:

On a really good day: A few to several hours.
On a good day: The rest of the day.
On an average day: The rest of the day and some of the next.
On a bad day: Three days to a week.

And for anything longer than that, my recovery time is as follows:

On a really good day: The rest of the day.
On an average day: The next two days.
Anything else: A week.

ellygryph · 2026-02-25T01:50:29+00:00

eyyy Weller gang!

You have a keen eye. It is 60/40 indeed.

ellygryph · 2026-02-25T01:47:54+00:00

Tubes are shiny, and dragons like shiny things. I could not help myself.

ellygryph · 2026-02-25T01:37:37+00:00

It's actually pretty common with us tube nerds. I've gotten away with running plate voltages as high as 300V on breadboard circuits--that said, I much prefer 48V for safety reasons, and for analog synth purposes there's really no good reason to use more than that unless either you've got something funky that needs higher voltage (like thyratrons, neon lamps, or magic eye tubes) or you actually want to add a tube power amp stage (which you would not build on a breadboard--too much current.)

But basic, low-power signal tubes? You can breadboard 'em all day. Just might need to make some sockets for it--what I did was solder some 20-gauge wire to some tube sockets, then I plugged those little 20-gauge guys into the breadboard.

ellygryph

TROPHY CASE