#Brain Gremlins

[cocklessboy]

The problem with my ADHD medication is that it wears off every evening.

I had some success with Ritalin, but I had some really unpleasant side effects with it. Constant desperate thirst, no appetite, grogginess, occasional racing pulse, and, oddly, disruptively increased sex drive (to which my psychiatrist said, and I quote, “well that’s weird. that shouldn’t happen.” exactly what you want to hear your doctor say). I was panicking, because Ritalin was my last hope. There are no other ADHD meds in this country (we don’t even have Adderall here), just atomoxetine (which gave me psychotic side effects) and Ritalin.

Well, methylphenidate. That’s the chemical name. Ritalin, but also... Concerta. The same drug, but in a slow-release capsule. When you take Ritalin, it enters your blood stream quickly, then gradually fades and leaves your system within about 4 hours. Concerta is taken in the morning and very slowly releases the drug over the course of 8-12 hours. In my case, about 10 hours, pretty consistently.

On the Concerta, my side effects vanished. I have. ZERO SIDE EFFECTS. Just the benefits. It has been life-changing. I get done in a single day what used to take me a month. Easily. With minimal effort. And with no side effects.

That constant desperate itchy NEED for stimulation is... gone. I can just... do stuff. Focus on stuff. Remember stuff.

I didn’t get diagnosed until I was 37 years old. 37 years of coping mechanisms and just scraping by. 37 years of hating myself and assuming I was the lazy, useless loser everyone said I was. 37 years of finding clever ways to trick my brain into letting me do basic life tasks.

And now I have my medication. A medication that works, perfectly, and with no side effects at all.

Until it wears off.

I take my pills around 10 am, and by about 8 pm, the meds have worn off. But I’m a night owl. I’m up till 1 am at the earliest. And from 8 pm till bed time I am unmedicated.

And it’s strange. It doesn’t feel like how I used to feel. By 8 pm I’ve accomplished loads. I’ve done work for my job, cleaned my home, cooked and eaten several meals, sent a load of emails, exercised, worked on projects, done some errands... And now I’m tired. Really, genuinely tired. But the gremlins have wrested back control of my brain from the medication and they are ANGRY. They have been denied their day of constant stimulation seeking. They have been denied their frequent little dopamine hits from scrolling tumblr or playing some stupid no-effort video game. They want stimulation NOW.

But there’s none left to have. There are no tasks to be distracted by, or distracted from. No emails to agonize over replying to. No work tasks that I know I should really get done but haven’t managed to do yet. No new posts to read on tumblr. And yeah, I could probably find a no-effort video game to play but... I’m tired. I’ve been doing stuff all day. I don’t want to.

But I’m not sleepy. I have that delayed sleep cycle and I absolutely cannot sleep so early no matter how tired I am.

And so I find myself in a weird haze at the end of each day when my meds wear off. The itchy feeling of needing stimulation is back, but the usual cycle of distraction and dopamine hits has been more or less dismantled. I don’t have anything ready to keep my brain satisfied anymore. I don’t have the mental energy left to focus on anything that requires even the tiniest bit of brain power. I can’t focus both because the gremlins have taken the wheel and because I’ve been focusing really well all day and my brain just doesn’t have any fuel left.

It’s a strange sort of state to be in each evening, feeling that vague need to do something but not being able to come up with anything to do.

I’m profoundly lucky that I not only have found a medication that works for me, but live in a place where it is very affordable. I wouldn’t trade my new life for anything. In the few months since I started this medication I’ve literally turned my life around. I went from barely surviving to finally being able to do all the things I’ve always needed and wanted to do with time left over to relax. There are so, so many people who could be helped just as easily, but don’t have access to the proper medication, or maybe don’t even know they need it.

But there is still this weird state I enter each evening. The gremlins are waking up just as I’m trying to head towards bed. I’ve completed my tasks for the day and I can relax and watch a movie or read a book or play a game but... I’m tired. And the gremlins are bored. It sort of... itches. But differently to how it itched before.

And I guess I need to learn new coping mechanisms for this new situation, to replace the old ones which I no longer need.

#actually adhd #adhd #ritalin #concerta #mental health #executive dysfunction #brain gremlins #neurodivergence #medication

[existennialmemes]

[Prepping baking ingredients like an 80s slow motion showdown] All right, it's time to fight my brain gremlins and my weapon of choice is

✨ Brownies ✨

#shitpost #shitposting #brain gremlins #mental illness memes #kitchen memes #neurodivergent #neurodivergent memes

[mischief7x]

OooooOoOo the smart gremlin has wormed his way into my brain he’s just so civilized tho 🥺

This isn’t even my art style???

#gremlins #gremlins 2 #art #brain gremlins #bro knows one song and it’s New York New York by frank sinatra #gremlins 2 the new batch

[joomju]

I got a good grade in therapy today (hah) so here's the thing that helped me, and my therapist liked it so much she said she's stealing it.

Fuck to-do lists.

I have a Done List. The Done List is for logging what I've done. At work I have a meeting with myself late Friday afternoon, and all week long when I get something done I toss a bullet point into that meeting. At the end of the week I know what I did. No more "augh it's all a blurry haze, what did I even do?" At home I have calendars in each room, and I mark off the days I cleaned that room. Doesn't have to be perfectly clean, just, did I do some cleaning there? Good? It gets marked on the calendar. No more cleaning the bathroom every two days, just to be really really sure I did it.

I have a Learn List. When I'm inspired/feeling good/ready to tackle something big I go look at this list. It includes books to read, tutorials and courses and training, it includes a new script I'm debugging, fic I'm trying to write, etc. Inspired Brain is a different thing from Executive Function Brain. I was having a lot of anxiety because I would be in the middle of creating something and the brain gremlins would go "but you need to vacuum!" No. The vacuuming gets added to the Touch List. It is not allowed to interrupt the Inspired Brain.

I have a Touch List. This is all the stupid stuff that doesn't require creativity. Vacuuming, folding laundry, filing my benefits reimbursement for the therapy, it all goes in the touch list. I try to touch it for half an hour each day. Touch List is a great catchall for anything nagging at me. It's allowed to have stupid things on it like "pick up lightbulbs" and then the next day "they were out of lightbulbs, go pick up lightbulbs from the other store" or whatever. I don't feel guilty about "oh shite I didn't get lightbulbs" I just go "well, that didn't work out the way I wanted, okay, it's added back to the list".

(Touch List = half an hour each day works for me because I'm no longer living below the poverty line. Getting to this place in my life involved an entirely different set of skills and that's an entirely different post.)

I found the endless to-do list to be panic inducing. It included everything from "vacuum" to "learn French" and that was really not helpful. When do you count "learn French" as done, anyway? It was like asking myself "why aren't you three people already? Why haven't you already turned into a fantastic athlete who is also a great cook who is also a consummate professional coder?" Logging everything on The Done List has helped me appreciate my own work more. It's helped me be kinder to myself. It's helped me see all that I am capable of, all that I already am, instead of just being overwhelmed by all that I still need to get done, all that I want to become. I hope it helps you too.

#anxiety #brain gremlins #joomju blathers

[blitheringbongus]

Wouldn’t it be so silly,, my love? (1/?)

It would be so silly frfr

#asks #Grem :D #my art #gremlins #gremlins fanart #brian #Pixel art #brain gremlins #aka #Brian gremlins #gremlins 2

[egap98]

there is literally not a character in any piece of media that radiates gender more than brain gremlin.

#gremlins #horror #brain gremlins

[theodoravanyar]

Of Chicken Tenders and Crochet

14,099 Days Alive 78 Rows into Bernadette’s Blanket 5 Chicken Tenders Eaten We’re at Pathfinder tonight, as per usual. I’m utterly exhausted and basically propped up in a corner, crocheting and trying to keep my eyes open. Continue reading Of Chicken Tenders and Crochet

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#Am Writing #Anxiety #Bipolar #Bipolar 1 #Bipolar Disorder #Brain Gremlins #Coping #Coping Mechanisms #Crochet #Crocheting #Depression #Exhausted #Family #Feelings #Food #Friends #Headache #I Need Sleep #Imbolc #In Pain #Insomnia #Life #Mental Health #Painting the Roses Red #Reading as a Coping Mechanism #Reading Challenge #Sad #Saturday Post #Sleep Deprivation #So Tired

[aisheyrufox]

Spamton moved into my brain and has completely taken over, so I had to draw him. This is attempt 3 to decide how I want to draw him lol. I am very proud of myself and plan on doing more each night. I love this lil gremlin so much.

Also, of course my Spamton is gonna look like a nerd lolololol

Spamton G. Spamton belongs to the amazing Toby Fox <3

#spamton deltarune #spamton g spamton #deltarune ch 2 #brain gremlins #Puppet #the skrunkly #pencil #inkart #Puppetscarf

[thatgirlonstage]

I had to face the horrors of trying on new clothes today so the brain gremlins are deep into “everyone can look like whatever they want and everyone is beautiful except you, you Specifically are ugly” tonight so that’s. Fun.

#brain gremlins #personal

[whim-prone]

did some gardening a couple days ago and i cannot express how much i recommend shoving your hands in dirt to calm the brain gremlins

#gardening #mental health #stick your hands in dirt #goblibcore #brain gremlins

[asinnersalibi]

Tips and Tricks

I feel like indulging myself in something beyond mindless cleaning and keeping my cats out of the trash can so here are some tips and tricks to make your writing feel more fleshed out.

Knowledgeable Writing

And I cannot stress this enough, write what you know. The more you research it and the more you try to understand it the more you sound like a text-to-speech system trying to include everything you'd learned in the last forty-five minutes. If you need to go back and look into some things, that's fine, but to stop in the middle of a chapter to research anything from the point system of tennis to how long the human body can survive in less-than-ideal circumstances is fruitless and overall harmful to your progress.

That being said if you are extremely knowable about natural poisons and how they could affect the human body or anything with a similar mass, keep in mind the audience you're writing to. Not everyone understands the difference between belladonna, henbane, and jimson weed.

Don't be afraid to validate yourself, a quick google search is not nearly as harmful, as making yourself feel like it's just not right and fretting about it for the next quarter chapter.

If you don't know, you don't know, there's no shame in it, you slap one of these [], bad boys, in there and review at a later time. Let momentum carry you if it's there.

Critic Management

You are your worse enemy, and your worst critic, literally. There are moments when your writing looks comparable to a toddler's and it's a part of the process. People who look down on you will always compare you to someone better or more talented but that's just smoke and mirrors, they have far more time and experience and you just haven't gotten there yet. Until you die love, time's the only thing you got.

Write for yourself, first. Yes, one day you want to be published and have a fanbase that writes fanfiction and draws fanart of your wonderful process, though, do remember who you started writing for, and why. More often than not I am writing because what I want to see and read and interact with is not there, so I need to put it there. Sure, it sucks sometimes, but you've got to want it, or you've got to need it, those are the choices.

Write it out and see, sometimes it's shit, sometimes it's this wondrous thing you didn't think you were capable of. That's writing, and sometimes our skills are flexible, sometimes we wonder if we ever really learned how to write or if we're randomly pulling this stuff from our ass hoping it's at least comprehensible. That is writing, it's a craft, and you're not always going to be good at it, that's where the going gets tough and you've got to be tougher.

Write, Keep Writing, Yeah- Keep Going

Trust me, it's really easy to notice a mistake three chapters back that disrupts your whole plot, and you think, let me fix it, just real quick, and now you've rewritten chapters three, four, and six, and envisioned your entire plot. Shit happens, and shit will keep happening but that's life. Try not to edit things in the middle of your novel. You'll notice so many mistakes and begin to doubt yourself as a writer but that's the writing process, mistakes are going to happen, you're writing will grow with you and you will grow with your writing. Make a note of it, physically, and write it somewhere correlative to whatever it's referring to (because you won't remember it, trust me.)

On that note, write things down, I have separate notebooks for every serious WIP (and one I use for when I cannot for the life of me find the other ones) I have in progress right now so I can randomly jot down things I need to revisit, keep in mind, or adjust. It's a paper trail and if you're anything like me you'll hate yourself for forgetting those little details. It'll help you immensely in the long run when you start editing and working on the second, third, and sometimes even ninth draft.

It's draft lovely, your first one at that. It's a rough outline of an idea you had last night or that you've had since you were a child. It's meant to be on paper, grammatical errors, plot holes, inconsistent characters and speech patterns and all. It's supposed to be rough, it's supposed to be imperfect, it's supposed to. I promise, your writing is an extension of yourself most time and you've got to admit at some point, that you don't feel all that perfect, no matter how much you love yourself. We have bad days, your writing has bad days too. It's okay, that's why we edit, take all its hard edges, and sand them down to something more tolerable and we mold it into something we consider perfect, in all its imperfections.

Do not be discouraged by progress. Whether it's a lack of or overwhelmingly sum of, take it all in, take a break when you need it and tackle it piece by piece, arc by arc, chapter by chapter, line by line if you have to.

Don't Forget About You

Taking care of yourself is believe it or not a part of the process. You can't forget to eat and drink water and rest your eyes. You can't write for six hours nonstop, or at the very least you shouldn't. Regrettable things come from the general act of self-neglect.

Water is important, so is realizing what you've done is all you can do for the day. Whether it was a chapter, or four, there's a limit to everything and it doesn't make you less of a writer if those limits aren't consistent.

You are writing a legacy love, it takes time, it takes energy, it takes effort. Moderation is key to everything and I'm sure the last thing you want to do is neglect whatever you're working on in a burnout.

Take time for yourself you crinkly little gremlins, water is important and so are sleep, food, and eyeball breaks for the blind bandits such as myself. It can be a lot but shit what are you gonna do? Try?

#writing #write #writers on tumblr #writers #writer #writing prompts #writersofinstagram #amwriting #writerslife #writerscommunity #gremlin writing #brain gremlins #chaos gremlin #gremlin brain cell #creative writing #tumblarians #instagram but tumblr #artists on tumblr

[mikailborg]

Friend on FB: "Rocky Horror Muppet Show!" 

Me: "Oh, god, no." *shivers* 

Gremlin in my brain: 

"It's time to build a sex toy

"It's time to give him life

"It's time to Frank a Furter on the Muppet Show tonight...

"We'll meet the Trans Sylvanians

"Perform their special rite

"It's time to do the Time Warp on the Muppet Show tonight!"

Me: "Why the f*ck do you NEVER STOP?"

#rhps #muppets #instafilk #brain gremlins

[bugs-and-spiders98]

The instant gremlin mode I go into when I see my boyfriend online is honestly slightly disturbing

#gay #i don't message him #i just like to know he's there #i have anxiety if I didn't i would totally message him #boyfriend #big gremlin energy #my beloved <3 #brain gremlins

[artemisharp]

I started streaming out of a desire to emulate the casual hangouts of my youth where my friends and I would play video games on our own in the same space, but since I started making it into a second job, I get so worried about streaming games and times that aren't my usual. While I love the little community that has grown, I'm constantly frustrated by the side-effects of turning a hobby into a side-hustle. I just want a place where I can hang out and my friends (especially ones that live far away so we can only interact through the internet) can drop in to say hi.

#brain gremlins #artemis writes her thoughts

[mxanigel]

me when I post new stuff to AO3:

please perceive me

but not too much

but if you happen to perceive me and like it

then let me know it isn't trash

#brain gremlins #tired thoughts #ao3

[theodoravanyar]

Of Moons and Misery

14,018 Days Alive 22 Days Till My Trip 12 Days Feeling Unwell 1 Mild Ear Infection Yesterday was the New Moon. I didn’t do anything for it. Continue reading Untitled

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#Am Writing #Anxiety #Bipolar #Bipolar 1 #Bipolar Disorder #Brain Gremlins #Coping #Coping Mechanisms #Crochet #Crocheting #Depression #Exhausted #Family #Feelings #Food #Friends #Headache #In Pain #Life #Mental Health #Painting the Roses Red #Reading #Sad #So Tired #Struggling #Suicidal #Tired #Work #Writing #Writing as a Coping Mechanism