look i would LOVE to fall asleep but sadly my brain is still waiting for Tonight’s Fantasy Scenario so i can spend 60-90 minutes daydreaming quietly in the dark while waiting for the gaping abyss of sleep to swallow me whole, i have a ROUTINE

“other people do this?” yep yep

using fantasy scenarios and mental storytelling to calm the mind enough to fall asleep is a pretty common strategy among some neurodiverse folks with sleep issues (which is. a lot of us). I don’t know if it’s a common behavior among neurotypical folks too, but I’ve seen it discussed fairly often in ADHD and autistic communities, and among people who struggle with anxiety. It seems that people like us have different needs when it comes to calming our minds and bodies enough to fall asleep. My theory is that, by hyperfocusing or immersing ourselves in imaginary scenarios, our thought process is able to stop jumping around (the way it often does when understimulated) and latch on to something steady, plus we become less aware of intrusive environmental stimuli (buzzing, traffic noises, light from the window, etc). All of which is a recipe for sleep, as long as the act of daydreaming itself does not keep you awake (which it can sometimes, depending on the person or the intensity of the storyline).

It can be a useful coping mechanism! But it can also become maladaptive or ineffective over time. It all depends on your personal experiences. So be aware of how you use it, and when it’s time to look for other tools (such as sleep supplements, blue light filters, sleep hygiene routines, breathing exercises, etc).

ko-fi

anyway, growing up doesn’t mean you stop getting bedtime stories, it means you are now responsible for telling the bedtime stories!

Your daily dose of spooky posts

“It’s literally impossible to be a woman.

You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we're always doing it wrong?

You have to be thin, but not too thin, and you can never say you wanna be thin. You have to say you wanna be healthy, but also, you have to BE THIN.

You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass.

You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean.

You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas.

You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time.

You have to be a career woman, but also, always be looking out for other people.

You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is INSANE, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining!

You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood, but ALWAYS STAND OUT and ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL. But never forget that the system is rigged, so find a way to acknowledge that but ALSO, always be grateful!

You have to never get old. Never be rude. Never show off. Never be selfish. Never fall down. Never fail. Never show fear. Never get OUT OF LINE. It's too hard! It's too contradictory, and nobody gives you a medal or says 'thank you!' And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also, everything is your fault.

I'm just so tired of watching myself, and every single other woman tie herself into knots, so that people will like us.

And if all of that, is also true for a doll just representing a woman, then I don't even know." -Gloria the barbie movie

this is it. this is exactly it oh my god.

[ID. Video of a woman recording an opera performance when her cat, fluffy and with bulging eyes, hops into frame. She stops singing and tries to push the cat slightly out of the way, but on her next cue the cat starts meowing before she can sing. The woman starts laughing as the cat continues meowing to the music, as though it was singing as well. End ID.]

More evidence that cats bond with us by mirroring us.

I’ve read accounts here on the Tumblr of a trans man whose cat lowered the pitch of their meow, after he started taking T. So I suspect this woman sings a lot around the house, and her cat is like: “That’s just how we do things in this clowder.”

My cat’s version of this is yelling at me when I sneeze or play my YouTube videos too loud. She’s telling me to shut the hell up.

A cut transgirl romance comic by Garun

This just restored my faith in humanity

Honey are you OK? You rebloged Garun’s comics 5 times today

Aight time to cry and reblog trans girl yuri again

Translation:

UNINTELLIGIBLE, that I'm telling you.

It's not easy birthing a child... It's not easy.

What are you going to do with your children? What will you give them?

Where is your husband?

What's the name of interview the gifs are from do you know?

btw Jewish charity organizations in the USA don’t exist to convert you like Christian charity organizations, they are specifically Jewish because they were likely founded by Jews who were being turned away from other organizations. several Jewish hospitals exist in the US because many Jewish immigrants had degrees but were turned away from other hospitals for being Jewish. so we made our own, lmao. these days most of these organizations are no longer specifically Jewish because job and care discrimination is not as common for us as it used to be. i’m saying this just in case anybody is wary of accepting aid (many Jewish charities set up free food kitchens, for example) from a Jewish charity because of mistreatment by Christian ones, and i think it’s important to understand the difference

The bulk of the work HIAS does these days is in aiding non-Jews.

Your local Jewish Community Center? Anyone can join.

Jewish Family and Children’s Society? They’ll still help you if you reach out for their services and aren’t Jewish.

Ask the Hebrew Free Loan Association for a loan and have no connection to Judaism? Yup, they’ll work with you.

A Jewish food bank? Will feed you, no matter who you are.

And HIAS? My synagogue is working with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to support a refugee family that is new to our area (we furnished their house, do social stuff with them, and make the phone calls that are hard for ESL folks). The father in the family is literally a pastor.

remember, Judaism is a non proselytizing religion. we will never try to convert you.

I’m not Jewish but I am currently learning about this in a religious studies class.

This is 100% true!! Proselytizing is something that they just don’t do in Judaism. If you want to convert to Judaism you totally can. I don’t know all the details, but according to the very limited information I received from my Jewish suitemate, it’s not not very hard to do. Unlike other religions where the process can be a literal hell hole. You’re not going to be looked down upon for not being born Jewish either. But no one is going to discuss conversion unless YOU bring it up.

But if you don’t want to convert? That’s not a problem! You will not be treated any differently. Your beliefs will be respected! No one is going to try to convince you to convert.

In all: Want to convert? Cool! Don’t want to convert? Cool!

I see a lot of people joking about the adhd thing of "I have a appointment/phone call at 3pm, guess I won't do anything all day!"

But no one seems to make the connection that it's a time blindness thing. One of the symptoms of ADHD is not having a good and accurate sense of time. And not doing stuff prior to an event with a hard deadline is an obvious coping mechanism for that.

Can I go to the store? It's 10am and the appointment is at 3pm. How long does going to the store take? An hour? Three hours? Five hours? I DON'T KNOW!

I get anxious trying to do things before appointments because I'm aware that I don't know how long those things take, and that if I think I do, I may be very wrong. Too often I've been like "hey I can walk to the corner store and grab a drink, that'll take like 15 minutes!" and then an hour later I get back and whoops my rice has burnt.

Plus there's also the fact that ADHD people know that motivation and focus is a two-edged sword.

Like, let's say you decide to play a video game. You've got time, you can pause/save whenever, so this should be a perfect fit to make good use of your waiting-time. So you start playing and WHOOPS you get really focused for some reason today (because people with ADHD do not get to pick when their brain decides to focus) and the next time you look at the clock it's 2:49 and you haven't showered or dressed and the appointment is 30 minutes away. Fuck. (you could have set an alarm, but now you're asking people with the forgetting-things-and-time-ignoring condition to remember it set alarms)

And with motivation, it can be almost worse. Instead of playing a game, you so something useful or creative. You clean your room or fix your plumbing or write a story or draw a picture. And suddenly it's great. Your brain is firing on all cylinders. You've got all the motivation you can ask for, and you are FLYING. the ideas are brilliant, your hands are nimble, you're getting stuff done you've been putting off for weeks or months. And then the alarm goes off. Time to go to your appointment. Fuck.

You drive there, your brain still full of ideas and plans. But by the time you get back, the motivation is gone. You may still have the ideas but you don't have the drive to write them down. You can't force yourself to do it. Your sink is still in pieces. Your room is half-cleaned, and you have to shove all the sorted clothes into one big bin just so you have somewhere to sleep. You've left things half finished again, in a cycle that has been repeating your whole fucking life. It seems sometimes that nothing ever gets finished.

So next time you don't even start. There's not time. You've been burnt too many times. Why add another half-completed project to your pile of shame?

My point is that people seem to be going "lol I can't do anything all day if I have an appointment at 3pm" like this is a quirky "oh I'm so scatterbrained!" weirdness they alone have, and not a major complication of a disabling mental illness.

(and that's not even getting into the secondary effects. If you know that having an appointment ruins your whole damn day, you're going to avoid them. Even when it's things like "going to that party" or "meeting your friends for a drink/game" or "going to a movie with that cute girl from your math class". Things you should enjoy. Things that'd help you be social. Things that make you feel human.)

THAT’S AN ADHD THING??!!

I thought I was just dumb or overly anxious. I’ve been diagnosed since I was in elementary school. How did I not know this??!!!

I can feel The dryness of those markers in my bones

Fun fact those dry markers were supposed to have water put into them to make them work. You take off the bottom thing and pour water in and bam, instant marker success. Only learned about this four years after I’d lost my set 🙃

WHAT

WHAT

WHAT

Hey. Reblog to save some poor kid lots of grief.

Fucking what?!

Every ‘90s child on Tumblr raises their head in outrage.

I just stood up so fast and snatched mine out of my closet brb going to the sink

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

Are you fucking kidding me

They couldn’t have put an instruction card in there or something????

My whole childhood has been a lie.

The Skywatcher v1.7! (Click for quality!) Take to the skies with a full martial class, 8 subclasses, and a feat to deliver destruction from above! Swift strikes, Rallying Commands to support teammates, and more, based on the Pegasus Knights of Fire Emblem! With artwork from @goma-folio, @loafa, @dc9spot, @graysheartart, and others! Full credits in the reblogs. Tumblr won’t let me post all 18 pages of it at once, so here’s a sample of what it offers! Full document below. Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Msq9txRg4xJ6_XiFoZ34Ky76-xLE5vv0/view?usp=sharing GMBinder Link: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MWF4Oa6SPge7TtfQ568

no way no fucking way....

NO fuckifn way

100% TRUE

Pro tip: If you copy and paste a link that said “no free articles” into a private/incognito browser, it will let you read the whole thing.

also if u press the “esc” (escape) key on ur laptop before the page fully loads, it won’t load any pop-ups blocking u from reading. if the article has images, then this method sometimes does not u see them. but! the words will be fine :)

If the site is particularly badly designed, you might just be able to delete the overlay itself. Right click > Inspect element and delete the line of HTML (it’ll be highlighted automatically)

hey kids there is a website called outline.com that will let you read from pretty much any news site with a paywall for free

outline.com is amazing - it hasn’t failed yet on any site that I’ve tried it on.

There’s a chrome extension and firefox extension.

The point isnt that there are workarounds for non-free news sites, the point being that if you have to jump through hoops to get the news, people are going to where they dont have to jump through hoops.

Repeating this because it’s ridiculously important:

The point isnt that there are workarounds for non-free news sites, the point being that if you have to jump through hoops to get the news, people are going to where they dont have to jump through hoops.