Tbh the idea that German is an angry or ugly language is just French propoganda to divert attention away from the fact that French sounds exactly like when your dog is choking on some plastic wrapper he found somehow
This post is a little outside my usual, but my brother’s girlfriend and her aunt are trying to raise money for her 67-year-old mother – who was diagnosed last year with cancer – so that she can go on a trip to Yellowknife, NWT to see the Northern Lights up close before she passes which has been a dream of hers.
They have estimated that they would need to raise about $4000 and the break down of those expenses are all listed on the fundraising page here. The aunt would have to accompany her to assist with moving around because of the cancer’s progression throughout her body limiting her mobility but the basic break down is for flight expenses, the arctic tour, food and specialized transportation.
Even if you can’t or don’t want to donate, which I completely understand, if you could extend a little support just by reblogging this post, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much. ♥
twilight’s soundtrack didn’t have to go as hard as it did… decode by paramore? supermassive black hole by muse? roslyn by bon iver and st vincent?? breaking my little middle schooler heart despite not once experiencing love? iconic
how dare i forget a classic… eyes on fire by blue foundation as all of the sparkly whites dramatically walked into the lunch room… incredible
everything about twilight was spectacular except for the main plot. like, they cast native americans in major speaking roles and their filming was amazing and their side characters had bomb ass backstories,,,,,, and then we had bella and edward
A CROW TRIED TO GO IN OUR CLASSROOM AND HE HAD A PEN
yes hello i am here to learn geometries
That crow is more prepared than some of my students.
You’ve all just like, completely skipped over the possibility that this crow has seen people using pens in this room, found one, and is trying to return it. There’s been videos of crows picking up sweet wrappers and stuff and placing them in bins after seeing humans put their litter in bins. I really do believe that this crow is trying to return the pen and that is ADORABLE AS HELL.
THEY ARE SO SMART I LOVE THEM
Crows are thought to be self aware by some scientists. Its perfectly possible the crow wants to return the pen to humans. Knowing it belongs to humans.
Corvids. Who KNOWS. 🙂
Another cool crow deal: Once, when trying to assess if crows could reason and use tools, scientists had two crows who didn’t know each other each take a wire from a table (one was hooked, one was straight) and try to grab meat from a bottle with it. The crows could see each other, though they had separate bottles. Only the straight wire worked for this, so they hypothesized that if crows could reason, the second trial would have the two crows fighting over the straight wire. The second trial started and, to the surprise of the scientists, the two crows both went for the bent wire, one held it down and the other unbent it. They both got meat out of their bottles. They came to a peaceful solution without verbal communication. Crows are probably smarter than we are.
they still shit all over the place and eat garbage
Laziness: I’d rather sit here than pick up those clothes
Executive Dysfunction: I need to pick up those clothes I need to pick up those clothes why am I still watching this thing on Netflix while sitting down c’mon stand up I need to pick up those clothes I need to pick up those clothes I need to-
The Kind Of Actual Pathology-of-Motivation Associated With Major Depressive Disorder*: I know I need to pick up those clothes, and if I don’t pick up those clothes my quality of life will continue to decline, and theoretically the consequences of picking up those clothes are ones I don’t want, and if I don’t pick up those clothes they will get wrinkled and dirty again and I won’t have clean clothes to wear, but my life is an undifferentiated mass of grey and despite knowing all of these things I cannot actually make myself fucking care I will just stay here and stare at the clothes while Netflix plays until it stops. And tell myself how fucking lazy, stupid and useless I am because if I weren’t I would realize that I need to pick up those clothes and make myself do it. This is totally fine.
[yes, this is actually separate from executive dysfunction; it’s also a symptom of illness, a potentially really serious one, and tends to spring from complications due to anhedonia, or lack of the ability to experience positive stimuli] [it is also often COMORBID – that is, happening at the same time – with executive dysfunction]
Can you expand on how “i just can’t care” is different from “lazy”? Is it the internal ability to care, that it’s just lacking, whereas with laziness you have the capacity to do the thing, you just choose not to. I’m having trouble with cementing the actual explanation. Laziness is a values thing and the rest is a base-functionality thing?
In terms of what I meant, the crux there is cannot make myself.
Say I’m being lazy with my afternoon, and someone I know comes in and says, “You need to stop being lazy and do the thing, or Bad Consequence will happen.” And the consequence is genuinely bad.
For instance, say I’m Not Cleaning the Kitchen and someone comes to me and says, “You need to clean the kitchen or you’re going to get ants”. And they’re even right.
If I’m being lazy, and I agree that now that I think about it, ants aren’t good, I don’t want ants, I kick my own ass, get up and clean the kitchen. This is based on the ability of my brain to literally experience a Reward, a Positive State, from having a cleaner kitchen and not having ants.
If I’m having catastrophic anhedonic motivation failure? That doesn’t work. It’s not that I want to stay on the couch more than I don’t want to have ants. It’s that I can’t make myself care about EITHER state because it’s all fucking horrible. Nothing gets better. I might as well fucking have ants. I deserve ants. Look at me I can’t even fucking keep my kitchen clean I don’t even WANT my kitchen clean obviously since I’m still lying here so fuck it, I’ll just lie here and have ants. Oh look now I have ants. Isn’t that fantastic proof of how fucking awful I am.
Of course the entire thing is usually not that articulated in the brain, you know? This whole thing is an example. Usually it’s more like:
Laziness: … meh put away clothes later. Executive Dysfunction: *want to put away clothes* *constantly stall on the initial cognitive step of How To Put Away Clothes* *get more and more distressed/stressed about not putting away clothes* *keep stalling* *cry* Anhedonic Lack of Motivation: *lie there. stare at clothes. know clothes should probably go away. can even think of whole set of steps to put away clothes.* *cannot fucking feel anything about putting away clothes* *stalls out forever in pit of ‘why do i even fucking bother i should lie here and rot’* *uses fact that clothes have not been put away as evidence*
But the original form is pithier and has better rhythm.
So, it looks the same to a third party, but it feels/behaves differently on the inside
Well yes. They ALL look the same to a third party, at least casually – that’s the point.
If you know the person it’s pretty easy to see the difference (the general aura of misery and disinterest in anything else in the universe is a big hint).
This is something I wish was more widely understood. Executive dysfunction has become known about in my irl circles and while there’s definitely one or two for which this a problem most of the rest seem to use it as an explanation for the symptoms of unmanaged depression. As a society we are really bad at recognising the flat, empty, grey gaping maw that eats time and quietly lets us ruin our lives through neglectful apathy. Because that’s laziness, right? So I can understand wanting an explanation that doesn’t relegate blame. The problem is the most easily accessible, without further stigma (eg. depression as a moral failing) is an incorrect one, and genuinely unhelpful. Not the same strategies to address, plus depression can use more brain broken to feed to ifs narrative of I Hate You.
I mean: executive dysfunction is also a symptom of depression, and like I noted they’re often very much comorbid. I have had whole periods where what made my life fall apart was the total demise of my executive function.
But yes, executive dysfunction and anhedonic lack of motivation are actually different things, and they also require different things to fix.
And gods yeah, I think that the way that anhedonia – the actual impairment or destruction of your ability to experience positive emotions and stimulus – is something that needs way, way more attention, w/r/t how it works and how it affects your ability to function.
i wonder if theres such a thing as a disconnect between the action and the reward–as in you do feel a reward from doing something, it’s just that while you’re not doing it you sort of can’t believe in or don’t care about the reward? and so it doesn’t seem worth doing, but then if you do somehow get forced or just do it in a random fit of motivation the reward does happen, it’s not gone.
That’s a species of the anhedonia, I think – particularly annoying in its own right, but long-term slightly easier to deal with than the complete version (if only because it’s easier to leverage external help to problem-solve it, or whatever). Which, like: “easier” here should be read as “well being in a car crash and having your car totalled AND your femurs broken is worse than ‘just’ having your car totalled, but either way it sucks a lot.” *makes face*
i definitely have to deal w/ executive dysfunction sometimes but this sounds a lot truer to my general experience/way of thinking when i get into a Not Doing Things rut, and is maybe why most advice about executive dysfunction doesnt seem quite right for me
…….do you have any advice on how to deal or Get Things Done
I have so much sympathy. =
The big trick for me was actually a medication one – I see a psychiatrist at UBC and my current regimen involves low doses of specific stimulants which have, bluntly, allowed me to experience neuro-’rewards’ again. For some people the problem is instead dopamine issues, so dopamine reuptake inhibitors work better; etc. Which is another round of That Infuriating Fucking Drugs Roulette, which I totally understand can be Insanely Frustrating/Discouraging to hear, but … is often the case.
The smaller tricks that allowed me to survive while getting there (because it took about a year of basically “anhedonia is my life”) were mostly what I call triage? I got very good at actually assessing how much energy/motivation/capacity I had, vs what I absolutely had to accomplish with it, and – I guess in summary, I learned how to treat my depression like the fucking disability it is.
Things I threw out? Shit like “I should make myself Healthy, Balanced Meals” – fuck it, this was just not going to happen. I personally was very lucky in that I was able to access a meal service, but this isn’t available to all people – on the other hand, when that’s not available at all, it’s fair to do things like just fucking … buy Ensure. Eat peanut-butter and celery. Figure out your actual bare-bones nutritional needs and find the easiest possible way to fulfill them.
I learned to treat my disabling anhedonia the way I would have treated immobilizing back pain: no this was actually something that prevented me from having “spend twenty minutes in the kitchen cooking” as an option.
This included things like school or applying for disability if that’s an option or whatever. I did manage to stay in my program – just – but there was rapidly approaching a point where I was going to have to take disability leave. I’m VERY LUCKY in that while this last round was HELL for anhedonia I didn’t have the heavy-duty brain-fog and memory issues that have marked previous Lows in my depression, so I could actually do things like “okay fuck I need to just sit at this computer and ignore that I am in a pigsty until this paper is done.”
It doesn’t mean you give up and fall over and go LIFE IS OVER I AM FAIL I WILL LIE HERE FOREVER AND ROT. But I had to give the same KIND of flat triage-type thought to how my life worked as I would have if I were on chemo for cancer, or if I had MS or whatever: this is what is possible, this is what isn’t, how do I leverage what is possible to the best outcome.
The other was “find the things that I can get ANY kind of satisfaction from, even if it’s really small.” Specifically, find the ones that aren’t drugs, alcohol, unsafe sex, destroying personal relationships, or any of the other things that people often resort to in these situations because they are things that get a stimulus response where nothing else does. For me this turned out to be Sims Freeplay. 😛 Other people will have other things.
Ask for help – note that I am actually fucking terrible at this one, Because Reasons, but my damage aside if you have friends who are like “what can I do to help?!” and it’s an available option then fuck it man: “could you come over and clean my kitchen” or “can I just eat dinner at your place” or whatever? These are viable ways they can help if they will actually help you. (I have issues but my issues are Stupid: if you are not hobbled by these kinds of issues jesus GO FOR IT, I have been on the other side of this also and trust me “SURE I WILL CLEAN YOUR KITCHEN” is a thing.)
Be STUBBORN. Every time your brain tries to go “look at you you pathetic loser” go “no. I am SICK. I am doing what I can. What I can isn’t very much. BUT I STILL AM.” Designate someone to be the person whose authority on the issue you trust that you can text or whatever and go “REMIND ME THAT I AM SICK AND FRANKLY GETTING UP AND SHOWERING AND CLEANING THE CATBOX AND READING A SCHOOL ARTICLE IS A FUCKING SUCCESS STORY” and they will do this (and possibly add further reinforcement).
My personal coping mechanisms also involve a lot of being a crabby angry cape-buffalo-type stubborn COW at the whole thing, and a lot of swear-words, and generally not a lot of Softness and Sweetness, so that even when I am giving myself positive reinforcement it’s like I’m yelling at myself, because … I have issues (but it works); yours may be the exact opposite.
(So I tend to be like OH MY GOD WILL YOU FUCKING GET A CLUE YOU DID X AMOUNT OF SHIT TODAY THAT IS NOT NOTHING WILL YOU JUST STOP IT AND BE FUCKING PROUD OF YOURSELF BEFORE I HAVE TO KICK YOUR ASS to myself. This does not work for everyone but on the other hand the general behaviour markers of Being Nice To Myself actually make me worse. BRAINS ARE WEIRD.)
… so yeah. I dunno if any of that is helpful? But that’s how I survived.
I feel like this year I had a period of “hey look i am taking ADHD meds so I actually have enough executive function to figure out good coping mechanisms for ADHD look i can plan and schedule and do stuff!” followed by a period of a milder version of this kind of anhedonia which meant that ugh fuckit i’m just terrible and all the coping strategies are stupid and exhausting and we already know i’m horrible and useless and I can’t care anyway so why bother?
followed by meds-changes that made that less crushingly terrible, followed by okay i can kinda get stuff done but I still have to use these ADHD coping skills that are still exhausting/brain-consuming and I still don’t really have any energy unless i’m in anxious-panic-work mode…………which is where we’re at now in the meds-roulette game.
lanablack 