I thought 1 to 3 was normal. Ummm. Hm. Uh oh.

Nope! 1 sometimes but that's it. Pain means that something is wrong, it's why it exists. Healthy people exist at 0-1 unless something causes pain.

Yeah I remember going to physiotherapy after I messed up my shoulder and as we were starting the first session she asks me about my pain level. And I go "My shoulder or like the general day to day stuff? And if its worse then my base level my I'd count my base level as 0 and go up from there right?"

And the look on her face as she very patiently explained that that 0 is always no pain, the start of the scale, and is what day to day should be.

Then she went through what each level was with me to figure out where I was, apparently my day to day is arpund 4-5 when I would have said 2, with my shoulder an 8 vs. my initial guess of somewhere around 6, which was eye opening.

Apparently I'd been under reporting my pain to doctors for years because I've had arthritis my whole life and no one thought to actually explain that the normal level of pain is none or how a pain scale works.

So yeah if your above a 0 on a regular basis you've got chronic pain and honestly you're probably underestimating the amount of pain you have.

The fact that some people just assume you're supposed to always feel some pain somewhere is heartbreaking....it's only recently that I have a bit of backache almost daily and thats upsetting enough to me. You aren't supposed to have even 1 body part hurting daily. : (

I'm not sure if I'm saying this right, but having chronic pain does move your baseline compared to able-bodied people. The human body can become used to pain just like the nose can become used to an odd smell, or the ears become used to a persistent background noise--awareness of it shifts to background processing and you only notice if something about that state changes.

As an example, I have chronic pain in my spine, hips, and legs. One time I got a leg massage, and it either eliminated or severely lessened the amount of pain in my legs. The reduction in what at that point was a 20-year baseline amount of pain was so jarring that 1) I could no longer "feel" my legs--I could move them, but it felt like they weren't "connected" properly, and 2) I literally couldn't walk for about a half hour. I was brought to tears in confusion and couldn't even really enjoy the relatively pain-free state because it rendered me unable to function.

If you tend to under-report due to chronic pain, it was explained to me that a pain you always have but can "ignore" is likely a 3 to 5, and if it kicks up so you can't work around it without medication it's probably a 5-7. If you still can't work around it after meds it's 7-8, and 8-9 is "nothing helps, definitely feel like I may be dying right now", and 9-10 usually is so bad you're screaming.

Having a bed routine also really helps!

I take a shower ( self massage during shower and massaging your face when you wash it helps me relax), then clean my room, then stretch ( you can do this on the phone with someone or while listening to music). Then I would make my bed. I would spray Lysol on my pillow and blanket and make stuff cozy with plushies and stuff.

Finally, if I’m sleepy after all of that, I would put a YouTube video that’s interesting (but not too engaging) and that has someone with a calm voice. I usually watch pbs space time or baumgartner restoration. A bedtime routine is about removing sources of anxiety ( dirty stuff for me), letting your body relax, make sure you’re not hungry or thirsty, and for people with anxiety you wanna make sure your brain isn’t going crazy when going to bed. That’s why a YouTube video that can still be interesting helps me focus on that and not be stressing.

Is this person I met yesterday my friend? What about this person I've been talking to every day for three months? What about this person I've known since middle school? Is friend a title I have to earn? What are the limits of friendship? Is it a static state, make-or-break, or is it some endless dance-dance-revolution style cavalcade of prompts and challenges and social cues I have to hit perfectly to keep it up? Does it bend? Does it break? I don't fucking know man I just work here.

i still remember when the dude doing my autism assessment asked me how many friends I had, and I was like "okay but how are we defining friendship?" and he just like, stared at me for a second and then wrote down some notes

autistic people ask our significant others if they want to hang out and spend twenty minutes worrying about how overbearing we mustve been to make them say "we can certainly do that, yes"

sometimes we retain both tendencies and then short-circuit when we have to figure out which one to apply!

Things that actually work if u try at them:

• Drinking water
• No longer making self deprecating jokes
• Making sure to take time out of the day to relax and take a breather
• Lighting candles
• Counting ur breaths in and out if ur having a panic attack
• Getting up and trying to do one thing even if u can’t do everything maybe brushing ur teeth but not having the energy to shower

Taking a shower if you can, putting clean clothes on if you can’t, even just a clean set of pjs. Washing your face.

A couple weeks ago I was in a major depressive slump and was feeling really detached from reality. I was trying so hard to fight it but nothing I tried worked until I realized I hadn’t listened to any happy music in almost a week.

I didn’t feel like listening to anything at all but I put on my favorite playlist anyway. Take On Me started and I finger stimmed to the keyboard riff and hummed along and by the end of the song I was smiling. A few more songs and I was fully singing along and feeling more present than I had in days.

Even if it seems small and trivial, like putting on your favorite socks or looking up pictures of kittens, it might be something you need. Of course the music didn’t solve any of the problems I was upset about, but it did help me feel like I was a person again.

This isn’t one of those “must be good to be neurotypical” posts btw, these are small and accessible steps that can really help.

My most common one is being 100% certain I did the thing already because the memory of doing it and the memory of intending to do it are the same mental images.

This entire article is eye-opening, even as someone who has ADHD and has read a lot about it already. There's so much more there than just the bit about the glucose-craving brain. SO. MUCH.

This might have been the bit that hit me hardest, actually:

it would be easy to misinterpret the following scenario as a standoff between two partners: Imagine that your partner asks you to pay the electric bill, and you say to yourself, “OK, I have time to do that today.” But when you sit down to do it, you keep getting distracted. The ADHD brain needs higher stimulation in order to complete this rote task with minimal payoff. Your ADHD brain says, “That task is way too boring, and I refuse to focus on it. Find something that interests me more, which offers me a bigger dopamine reward, and I’ll work with you.” It doesn’t matter that you know you should pay the bill as promised; if your brain won’t engage, it’s an ugly standoff. Perhaps, after a day of procrastination — when your partner will be home in 20 minutes and the bill is still unpaid — there may be enough of an adrenaline rush from a sense of crisis that your brain will engage and you pay the bill.

The ADHD brain and its owner are at odds with one another. It’s difficult to compel a disengaged brain to engage by force of will. In fact, much of the treatment for ADHD involves learning to psych out the brain, so that it will attend to necessary, low-stimulation tasks.

Appreciating the tug-of-war within that pits intellect against neurobiology increases compassion and acceptance for one’s hidden struggle.

I feel SEEN. OTZ

Seriously, though. Read the whole thing. It's a good one.

I used to straight-up eat stacks of plain bread when I was a teenager. I craved BREAD. Not sandwiches, not toast, not cinnamon buns. PLAIN FUCKING BREAD. And yanno what else? RICE. And NOODLES. No toppings, just butter and salt, and scarf it down.

And suddenly that makes a lot more sense.

ALL OF THIS IS IMPORTANT.