Quality Over Quantity

“You shouldn’t self-ID as ADHD/autistic, you’re turning a very real mental condition into a trend” Ok then stop saying delulu. Stop speculating on which cluster C personality disorder the criminals you hear about on the news have. Stop saying “schizoposting” and “acoustic” and “is it restarted?” Stop using “psycopath” and “sociopath” as catch-all ways of calling someone a bad person. Stop saying “the intrusive thoughts won” when you bleach your hair and then turn your nose up at people who suffer from very real, very scary urges of physical/sexual violence. Stop saying “I’m so OCD” as a way of calling yourself neat. Stop treating BPD/ASPD/Bipolar as inherently abusive. Stop saying “OP I am living in your walls” without tagging for unreality. Stop diagnosing complete strangers you’ve never met on r/AITA with NPD.

You first. If you don’t want our disabilities to be treated like trends then stop belittling and minimising them. I’ll NEVER judge a person for trying find labels for their symptoms when an apathetic, racist, sexist, ableist healthcare system refuses to. But I will absolutely judge a hypocrite. Which a lot of you are

studywithelle pinpost

I am 16 and i am in S5 in Scotland

This year I studied Highers in English, Biology, History, Latin and RMPS (religious moral and philosophical studies)

Next year I will be taking Advanced Higher English, RMPS and Modern studies, and a Higher in Classics

I hope to study English at Oxford, and then do a law conversion degree

I play cello (taking grade 5 exam in a few weeks), and piano at a grade 2/3 level. my sports are orienteering, ski-racing, tennis, and badminton. member of law, politics, debating, and newspaper societies at school.

would love moots!

the unsent project

i like to browse the unsent projects messages, and make myself feel sad over all the lost love in the world

i search up my name over and over, obsessively

i search up your name over and over, obsessively

they say we reflect the love we are shown

and maybe there is something in that, because when i look up your name there are hundreds of messages

and when i look up mine

there are two

i sent some of the messages to you

and when i scroll through every dark green one catches my eye

and the really pathetic thing is that i don't remember which ones i sent

maybe what we had wasn't so special if i am mistaking others messages for mine

i dont know

but i do know that you probably never search for my name

and you have certainly never sent me a message

i am nooooot locked the fuck in. im locked the fuck out. call the locksmith

i bring a sort of...locked out... vibe to the study sesh that the haters (my very clever bsf who is going to study medicine and needs straight a's) hate

also a poem from the new, unreleased collection. very possibly my own all-time favourite.

mood this week <3

sleep hygiene

sleep is so important for both your mental and physical health, i have struggled with sleeping issues for the last seven years, but here are the tips that have helped me.

non chemical sleep supplements it may be the placebo effect, but night time teas and tart cherries have genuinely helped me feel sleepier in the evenings

having a set sleep routine make sure no matter what you are in bed by a certain time and awake by a certain time, it will be difficult at first but your body will get used to it

making your bed a place just for sleeping as tempting as it can be to use your bed as a desk, or a shelf, it is far easier to keep it solely for sleep. that way whenever you are in bed you have the mindset of 'i am going to sleep now'

make sure your room is properly dark invest in blackout curtains, stick plasters over any electronic lights in your room, make sure it is as close to pitch black as possible

leave your phone in a different room this ensures that if you wake up in the middle of the night you won't be tempted to check it quickly, stay in bed and don't shine blue light in your face

make your bed every morning discourages you from getting back into bed and makes it nicer to get into in the evening

wear clean pyjamas as much as possible as tempting as it can be to crawl into bed in your underwear, or a sweaty t-shirt, having comfy and clean pyjamas feels so much nicer

do the same things every morning and evening having a set routine helps you get in the right mindset. my teeth are clean, i've washed my face, i've read ten pages, now i know it is time to go to sleep. the same for the morning, once i've made the bed and brushed my hair i don't go back to bed

fresh air and movement when you first wake up the common tip is sunlight in the mornings, i don't know about y'all but i live in scotland and in winter i am already at school when the sun rises, but going outside or just opening a window and feeling fresh cool air on your face is so helpful. also trying to do a bit of movement in the morning, even if its just stretch and touch your toes, it gets your blood moving and makes you feel more awake

I love you for your post about the “I’m just a girl” phenomenon - my eyes cannot roll far back enough into my skull when I hear someone say it in earnest

thank you! i'm so glad people agree with me on this! whenever i've brought it up to people i hear saying this they just argue thats its not that deep, but i think it is that deep!

i keep thinking about how rfk said that autistic people "will never write a poem." i keep thinking about that, about if humanity is calculated on the back of old verse. how far we measure personhood is in baseball and stanza breaks.

i keep thinking - i have over 7k poems on here alone. language can be a special interest, after all. did you know the word autism comes almost direct from the greek word autos, meaning "self"? self-ism.

maybe he is right - i haven't really played baseball. i was a ballet dancer instead. and besides - my sister once accidentally hit me in the face with an aluminum bat. i'm not sure if the injury gives me half points. am i only a person in the dugout? hand in a mitt? swinging?

does softball count? does cricket? am i a person if i throw the ball to my dog. am i a person as long as the ball is in the air, or do i stop being a person as it rolls into the bushes. i took my girlfriend to fenway recently; was i a person in the sun, with my hands up, with the game laid out at my feet in a diamond. i felt like a person, but that was back in the summer, and i often feel my most person-like then.

am i more of a person because of the sheer number of things i've written? does quality matter, or is it quantity? i used to write entire books every summer in high school - i wasn't doing well. i felt the least like-a-person back then. but then - does any person feel human in high school?

in the library, ink on my skin, i feel personhood shutter at the edges of myself. actually, writing feels blissfully like not being myself. it feels birdlike; escaping into creation so my body dissolves and i survive only by muscle memory. i am not there, i am writing.

but who can deny the falconlike focus of warsan shire, the tenderness of mary oliver, the sheer skill of amanda gorman. those are poets. they are certainly human. you could line them up with the way their words have influenced us and measure their literary shadows like wings.

perhaps it was very assumptive of me to want to be a poet rather than "a [ label ] poet." i wanted the work to fill itself in, rather than be stained by what i am. i do not write in despite of my neurodivergence, i am just neurodivergent and writing.

does the poem have to be in english or can i send it through my palms into the coat of my dog. does the poem have to make sense. does the poem have to love you back.

if i break a glass, will the poem appear naturally? or is the act of breaking the glass human-enough. the shards of my life glittering out beneath me - do i have to write the poem, or is it self-evident in the pile of glass splinters? i cannot grasp this world the way other people can. regardless, i endeavor to touch - even the mess - very gently.

i broke my toenail against my coffee table recently. i released a bug outdoors. i made coffee. i walked my dog.

i didn't write a poem about any of these things.

something else, then. existing without humanity.