#hes in the 99th percentile for being fucking weird

[235uranium]

bill is one of those characters where I've always kinda just intuitively Understood but bc [gestures at him] there's that degree of embarrassment that makes me distance myself from the character by simply not acknowledging emotions about him and I think that's very ford pines core of me

#☢️.txt #i get why ppl do the opposite but i personally find it much more interesting when ford does #actually understand parts of bills motives. not the full piece bc i dont think anyone has ever had that #but like. ford is a mortal being that was forced to grapple with the eldritch #and while he ultimately doesnt make the cross to becoming eldritch i think its nearly canon #that hes MUCH less effected by shrimp colors and human unfriendly environments than. most people #hes in the 99th percentile for being fucking weird #i think he understands why someone would take the offer and tbqh i think if it came from Not Bill Cipher #and not under threat of killing everyone and everything he loves. he might consider it #(i think like 90% of the time he'd say no anyways but he would have to think about it!) #and i think that he can also understand the sheer frustration of seeing how broken society is and being completely desperate to solve it #but tbqh? the real issue is that bill is an anarchist and ford is ML

[masslessobtrusion]

Bragging about my big brain...

I had a high IQ in school. I was accepted into gifted programs and nearly made it into the “genius” program. I didn’t cheat on the tests and it would’ve helped a ton if I could’ve prepped a little. I was very young. Most of the testing happened in 2nd or 3rd grade. I remember there being excitement when I scored high on standardized tests. This led to further testing. I didn’t understand the scope of what it meant. I remember my brothers joking about me being a “genius”. I started attending gifted programs in 4th grade.

 In regards to the testing itself, I didn’t know what to expect and can see how it really is kind of brilliant that I was able to recognize and translate various patterns. Why did I see those patterns when other people can’t?  

You have to do things such as recreate patterns using blocks with various shapes on them. I was able to create efficient systems in my head on the spot to complete the tests very quickly. Segment and optimize based on visual color, piece together a segment of the picture. There’s written number, shape, and word pattern tests too. The tests took all day. 

I didn’t make the super duper genius program because I failed to test 2 grade levels above in 2 of 3 categories. 99th percentile IQ was the other requirement. I was trying to test at a high school level exiting elementary school. I had no idea about that stuff because I didn’t focus on it and had no access to it.

 I was able to pick up on that very quickly once it was taught to me and I think I could’ve been accepted into it. Freshman science was the first time I had a great teacher. He had a fun method of learning the periodic table and I was able to memorize it within a month. But as far as school stuff went I just learned what was taught to me. I was more into hobbies and cool/fun stuff. I played with toys and did dumb kid stuff too. I researched and learned as much as I could about the information that was available to me. I had to do this on my own through trial and error. My Mom gave me access to everything. No direction though.   We still did stuff with the super duper genius kids but most of them were weird and arrogant. I would describe it as a very insular clique. “We’re smarter than you.”.  There were only 5-6 kids in the program. 

I wouldn’t have been interested in learning math at the time. I wish I could’ve learned about programming earlier. I think that would’ve got me interested in math if the correlation was made clear to me. Especially in regards to engineering and aviation. I would’ve found a passion. I wish I would’ve had better better influences around me. I wish I wasn’t exposed to so much hate, anger, and violence.  The standard gifted program required a 120 IQ along with a high score on a general knowledge/creativity test. It involved recognizing objects on flash cards, trivia, along with several written and drawing tests. I scored extremely high on an additional general knowledge/creativity test. My Dad lived out of state for most of the time which was probably beneficial too. My Mom and Dad both failed to raise me in an appropriate manner. My Mom did better than my Dad but she wasn’t fit to raise children properly. It’s due to poverty. She had to stay married to my Dad. My Dad moved state to state trying to find work. I wanted to be around him. The way he spoke to people didn’t bother me like it does now. I thought it was normal.  Talking about having a high IQ is frowned upon for someone to mention and brag about. I would think a person was being arrogant and possibly disturbed if they talked about having a high IQ in public. I remember peers would often be surprised when they found out I was in gifted programs. Jeez, thinking about how trashy the kids I went to school with are. How trash a huge majority of the humans in this area is. It’s fucking gross and disgusting.  The reason you put your kids in private school or live in a nice area is so your kids aren’t exposed to bad influences. It also sucks to rely on an sadistic hateful weirdo as a source of money to raise your kids.  I see the potential I had and how I could’ve used it much clearer now. So many adults seemed absolutely stupid to me. Like angry robots. The divide between these people and how I acted at home was so drastic.   So, whether my brain is firing different. At that time in my life. I was recognizing patterns, experiencing thoughts, and emotions that less than one percent of a similarly aged population were able to. It could’ve been a good thing if applied in a better manner.  I often can’t stop my brain from racing thoughts and recognizing patterns. That’s probably why I like benzos. Just being able to not think about anything is what I have hoped to accomplish by abusing those drugs. When my Dad would call me a fat druggy. I have to not think about it because it makes me upset and I can’t react or cause problems, because it will cause more problems. That’s why I chose to start abusing benzos when I moved back. It’s an excuse, but that was my justification at the time. I would take a bite of a bar every time my Dad said something shitty to me, which is everyday. There had been discussions about how I have almost died due to drug addiction and being around my Dad’s abusive behavior is not good. It was said to me that it wouldn’t happen and I believed it for some reason. Then, it started happening everyday and continues to happen, even after I tried to kill myself and made it very clear that their abusive behavior was causing me stress. They refuse to admit there’s an issue and continue to blame me. 

#raised by narcissists

[pisati]

it’s never so simple as “just”. just do this, just do that, then...

I wasn’t really surprised by my neuropsych results; in fact if I was surprised at all, it was that it went as well as it did. reading “based on educational achievement and performance on measures tapping general fund of knowledge (99th percentile) and reading (99th percentile), [her] intellect is estimated to be well above average” made me smile. good to know my thinker’s still intact. 

I still really want to take some time to research the tests they ran on me, now that I have the names for them. I want to learn what they’re meant to do. what research has shown that those are good empirical measures of cognitive function. just thinking about that gives me the warm & fuzzies. it feels so quintessentially me. I miss getting excited about things.

I knew what the doctor was going to say, partly because I already got the brief rundown from my psychiatrist. once again proving to my doctors that I don’t just want something to be wrong with me, I’m actually grateful that there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with my brain. my MRI and EEG both came back normal, and on my cognitive function tests I did, to quote the doctor, “very, very well”. he chalked it up to insomnia and depression, possibly whatever’s behind my insomnia as well. so I’m glad I’m seeing my sleep med doctor on the 29th. I just almost panicked for a second because I’ve had that appointment scheduled since january (the woman is booked out for months) and now I’m starting a job and I am scheduled that day, but thankfully the appointment is at 8:30 and I don’t start work til 12:30. phew.

but yeah. they think I should get a sleep study done; like a legit one. the last one I got was just making sure I didn’t have any physical problems affecting my sleep, and I already know I don’t. my brain just won’t quit. I’m going to have to remember to ask the doc if she recommends any rheumatologists in the hopkins system; anyone who could look at my test results and do anything but shrug at me. university-system doctors like to see weird cases, as far as I know. 

I’ve been sitting on this result for two days now, and I don’t really know how to feel. maybe a little confused, but at the same time not. doc thinks my depression is part of why my memory has been declining. and it’s not really memory, necessarily; we both know that. I had a lot of trouble on the story recall test. I need to look into the results more because I think I might have somehow managed to guess more correct answers than incorrect ones on the second part of the story test: at some point after the “recount as many details as you can remember” part, I was asked to say yes or no to statements about each of the stories that the examiner would recite, if I thought that detail was part of the story or not. I knew I was guessing on a majority of them, but somehow I think my results said I got 13/16 right. it was a 50/50 chance on each detail, so it’s not impossible that I could do that well by accident, but I know it was an accident. I really couldn’t fucking remember. anyway I performed in the 4th percentile on that test. very poorly. but it’s consistent with the memory issues I’ve been having for the last two years; information-heavy material just goes in one ear and out the other now. it doesn’t stick. it’s a lot of effort to remember things and it almost feels like my brain assigns importance to things randomly. I don’t forget everything, but I never know what piece of information is going to disappear next. not really “disappear”, of course. we’ve established I’m not losing anything. it just slips deeper into the sludge bucket until I forget it’s even there. 

I think what’s puzzling me most is that he doesn’t think this is characteristic brain fog stemming from an autoimmune disease. at least, that’s what the report says. it really could just be because I’m tired and sad. and it makes me wonder how that could be. on the one hand, I don’t feel like my depression has made it harder for me to think. but on the other... as doc mentioned to me in our meeting, when you feel bad, things just stop working right. people with long-term illness can’t remember what it’s like to function normally. I literally don’t remember what it was like to not be sad. I told him that I did estimate my depression to have started around 17, but looking back... I was exhibiting signs much younger. 13, 14, definitely 15. possibly even before that; I can’t remember not having a melancholic temperament (though I was a pretty happy kid til maybe 9-10, all said). the depression was only obvious to me at 17. I don’t remember what having energy was like either; I don’t remember if having energy helped my brain work better. that energy kick I felt the first day I was on wellbutrin... that was something else. I felt like someone opened a room-darkening curtain just a crack on a bright, sunny day. I had no idea it was even sunny out, or that the outside could be so bright. I remember thinking to myself, this is language-learning energy. this is what I’ve been missing. and just as soon as it was there it was gone again. maybe that really is what I need.

so the real issue, then, is figuring out why the fuck none of my sleep is restful. that kind of puts it back into the hands of both my sleep medicine doctor and my psychiatrist. I just want to know what’s wrong with me. I want to know that one day I can fix it. one day I’ll be able to pull back that curtain entirely and I’ll always be able to have light when I need it. 

it’s also weird reading an objective report of yourself, based partly on your own words and your doctor’s observations. coming out of my own mouth I guess I don’t see my depression as being that bad, but on paper, written by someone else... if it weren’t me and I was reading that, I’d have said “get that kid to a therapist”, lmao. it doesn’t feel that bad. it just kind of is. we’d talked about my home life back in high school, around the time my depression started. I’d apparently described my home life as “not great” (also unsettling to read so many quotes; definitely my words, but they almost read like sarcasm-quotes). sometimes reading things like that, even though I said them... it makes me feel bad. makes me feel like retracting it. well, it wasn’t that bad... like, no, I totally wasn’t writing blog posts at the tender ages of 15, 16, and 17 saying I couln’t stop crying and felt like I wanted to scream and felt like I was going insane because my mother was being a massive bitch to me for no reason other than the fact that she was stressed from work and having a shitty boyfriend and I was feeling a lot of emotions already related to being a “normal” 15-17 year old girl who couldn’t even process those properly because she couldn’t talk to her own fucking mother and was too stressed out at home to be stressed about those “normal” teenage girl things

mom gave me a lot. she gave up a lot for me and worked really hard for me. she raised me and my brother basically by herself, because, bless my father, he was useless before the divorce. I feel like I was able to take those things for granted, and I’m sure I did. but at the same time... you’re supposed to provide for your kids. spoiling us was her choice. but the value of those things, I think, diminishes if you neglect your kids emotionally. I can’t forget some of the awful things she said to me; when she’d storm into my room looking for things early in the morning, snapping at me and calling me a lazy bitch because my room was messy. taking away my things if I didn’t do something she wanted me to. I still don’t feel like I can talk to her about anything personal. sometimes I have to and I’m cautious about it. and even still, she’ll try to hold things over my head. I didn’t think it happened much anymore. I haven’t been able to think of examples to explain it, because it hasn’t happened in so long. but today...

I went to get my EKG done today. I couldn’t tell her that; my psychiatrist ordered it to make sure I was cleared to be on adderall, and I had to go to my GP to do it. mom doesn’t know I’m seeing a psychiatrist. but when I got to the office today (they could only schedule me before the 20th with a doctor that wasn’t my primary), they told me that since my doc wasn’t on my insurance card, insurance might charge a specialist visit fee for the EKG. I texted my mom later asking if we could make my doc my PCP through the insurance, since it’s her policy and I don’t know if I can make those changes, and she said she could do it when she got home. cool. but later I went downstairs and she snapped at me for not visiting her mother. now that we’ve moved grandma to a building a few miles down the road she’s been asking me to go over every single day, and I haven’t been. I guess that makes me a shitty person, but I just really don’t want to. if my grandmother had ever been any kind of pleasant to be around, I’d be more inclined. but anyway, mom said “I’m not changing your insurance til you go visit grandma”. are you fucking kidding me? this shit again? holding something I need over my head til I do what you want? I’m glad I’ll be getting my own health insurance through my job soon. I had to bite my tongue so I didn’t tell her that she’d be footing the specialist bill if that came, then. I get it, grandma’s alone. I’m a major asshole. I’d also like to enjoy my last few days of freedom. it’s absolutely not fucking fair to not change my PCP on my insurance, something that should have been done two years ago when I moved home and started going to this GP, because I don’t want to sit by myself in a room with someone who can barely hear anything I say if I say anything at all and will only talk about her hearing or what a pretty little girl I am; little girl, like I’m still 5

and it is unfair, I suppose, to be talking about my grandma like that. to be actively avoiding spending time with her. I feel like a callous dickhead for feeling the way I do. it’s the same thing I felt about being around my dad, almost. he could be so frustrating and doing literally anything with him, especially towards the end, was ulcer-inducing. I loved my dad to pieces, but I dreaded spending time doing things with him; even a simple trip to the store, it was always something. those conflicting emotions were, and still are, really hard to deal with. 

grandma’s schizophrenic. or, at least, very likely is. she’s lonely. she’s losing it a little (but she’s always been pretty nuts). I feel bad, I really do. I should want to be there for her more. but even my mom says it’s been the same story as long as she could remember. it was always about her. everything was always about her. a lot of it was the schizo. she’d never been diagnosed-- refused to talk to doctors. there’d be no getting her on meds. it just was how she was. but now mom has to hear every single day about how she just doesn’t hear so well anymore and she doesn’t get why (because being 94 doesn’t have anything to do with it) and how she’s terrified of losing her hearing (what’s left of it anyway; she’s deaf in one ear and has a hearing aid for the other). the schizo makes it so that she’s terrified that literally anything will affect her hearing. the AC unit in her apartment. a truck going by. a light, somehow. mom says the blinking light on the phone bothers her and she gets nonstop calls when there’s a voicemail on the machine. mom put a camera in her old apartment to keep an eye on her just in case anything happened, but apparently she couldn’t remotely pivot it if grandma was in the room because the motion would freak her out. and I feel awful about those things. I know what it’s like to live in constant irrational fear. it’s horrible. torturous.

but even as someone who tries to be patient and compassionate when it comes to mental illness, it’s really hard to stay sympathetic when it’s years and years of the same shit and she doesn’t even try to help herself. won’t try to distract herself. keep herself busy. she just wants to stew in thoughts about shit that happened 50 years ago and obsess about her hearing. and there’s really nothing to do besides just try to work around it, since we can’t get her to a psych. mom has tried everything. she won’t do anything by herself or with much of anyone besides my mom, so mom has tried playing boggle with her, coloring in coloring books with her (my idea), sitting and reading with her.. I recommended watching ASL videos with her and doing the signs with her like a game (but of course grandma outright refuses to learn ASL because even the thought of being totally deaf scares her; like, ok, but how will you communicate then). mom says she won’t sit still for long. she just wants to get up and leave the room for a few minutes, turn on the tv real loud for a few seconds to make sure she can still hear, whatever else. there’s only so much you can do and my mom has done all of it. it’s been years of this. sometimes I’ll hear mom yelling on the phone at her because she called, yet again, to ask her if she thinks some completely harmless thing will hurt her hearing (no, ma, it has nothing to do with your hearing! now stop!) or “this lady in my building was asking me about my family and my kids and I don’t know why she wants to know those things” (that’s just what people do! they ask questions to be polite!). even my mom loses her cool with her. it’s so, so frustrating, and it’s even more frustrating to feel so conflicted; like we’re not allowed to be frustrated because she’s mentally ill.

and that’s not to say I haven’t tried too. whenever I’m dragged over there with my mom I’ve tried talking to her, but no reasoning gets through. my aunt is awful to her, but no matter how much we tell her that’s just how she is, she’s like that to everyone, it’s the same things. I told her how my aunt didn’t talk to me for 3 years after a trip she took me on where I did exactly what she said I could do (but didn’t want me to do anyway), and she kind of laughed at it, but then continued on about how my aunt is so awful to her. don’t take it personally... followed by more taking it personally. it’s exhausting. if she can hear me at all, it’s like my words mean nothing anyway. she did like hearing about my rats and seeing pictures of them. she thinks they’re kind of cute. she was really surprised that they have so many babies and she kept talking about how amazing that was. that was probably one of the only good conversations I’ve been able to have with her in years. but I really had to reach and come up with more things to talk about so we didn’t steer back into talk about hearing loss and how pretty I am

it’s just. a lot. I do feel bad about not wanting to spend time with her, especially because I know she needs it. but it’s exhausting and awkward for me; I’d rather not be alone with her because I have nothing to talk about and she’s just going to go on about her hearing and won’t listen to anything I tell her if she can hear me at all and just ugh

don’t remember how my post took that hard left, but it did. writing is nice, tangents and all. I’m still feeling mixed emotions over my results, where to go from here. it probably won’t be as simple as “just” going to another rheumatologist, “just” getting a sleep study done... I don’t know what this is but it’s going to continue being an uphill battle for a while. I’m just glad I have people in my corner who have been reminding me that there’s always something else. I haven’t exhausted every option yet. encouraging me to keep going. it helps so much. if I didn’t even have that little bit to hold on to these last few months... I don’t want to know where I’d be.

I was just thinking about that last night, actually. one of my journal prompts had me thinking about it. the tiniest little things make such a big difference. just hearing I did a good job with something, or that someone’s proud of me. even if it didn’t seem like I did much, or even if my brain wants to tell me they’re just saying those things to be nice. I really haven’t been talking to much of anyone in at least a year. only one person with any kind of regularity. it’s been deafeningly quiet and honestly really lonely. and it easily could have been much quieter and lonelier. I’m not sure I want to know where I’d be if I hadn’t been talking to anyone this last year or so. probably would’ve spent a lot of time back on okcupid, reactivating, feeling sick to my stomach, and deactivating. over winter I was looking for any kind of community online; facebook groups, meetup groups, hell even subreddits... I felt too late to the party on everything. but I guess it hit me real hard that I just missed having company. people to talk to. it was really frustrating watching everyone else living their lives and feeling cocooned away; like I wasn’t doing anything worthwhile and I wasn’t ever going to. I guess that urge mostly subsided. winter is a lonely time in general. I can only imagine where I’d have been mentally if I’d spent the whole thing completely alone.

part of that is really on me for not reaching out. I know I need to let people know more often that I care about them. I’m learning that I’m pretty damn bad at showing it, but I don’t think I realized I was never good at it. I know I show it in different ways from most people, but I thought it was a little more obvious than it probably is. I feel, from an outsider’s perspective, that I seem kind of like a cat. even when I am showing affection, it’s hard to tell. I do wait for people to talk to me first, and I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s necessarily fear of being annoying, but that does cross my mind occasionally. it feels more like... they don’t want to hear from me anyway. they’ll look at the notification and ignore it for a while before they think of a polite reply. what do I even have to offer them? I guess it’s more fear of being rejected. people have asked me why I don’t invite friends over to do things instead of waiting to be invited out, and I asked myself the same question. but then I realized... I did do that. I’d ask charlotte to go to concerts with me, she’d either ignore me or not really want to go. I asked her if she wanted to do even a monthly craft night, if I could go over and help her clean her house; anything. we did two yoga classes together and that was it. now she’s too busy to even talk to me; my messages go unread for days. all of a sudden she actually wants to spend time with sawyer; the boy she’d ditch handily for me when they were still dating. she’d nudge me out the door when it was about time for him to come home from work, even though he’d usually go straight upstairs and not bother us anyway. she just posted pictures on snapchat of them going to a peach farm to pick peaches, and she takes him to all these antique markets and stuff that she knows I’d like going to too. always busy doing something with his family, when I do ask if she has a free weekend. can’t really invite my PA friends over either, and I’d only ever been successful in getting one of them to come visit me more than once. the others, and only some of them, came down for my little grad party in 2017. that was it. I absolutely am projecting the results of a few past rejections on to my future, but I really do fear rejection. I’d rather not even bother. good thing I spent a lot of time learning how to be alone, I guess.

I forget where I was going with this. my eyes are starting to cross; I think it’s bedtime

#rambles rambles rambles #I always say 'sometimes you just need to word vomit' #and that's the truth #but man oh man if I'm not going at 60 tangents a minute #I just talk and talk #good to get it out I guess #blah blah nothing important