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For some reason Tuesday was a complete write-off. Sneppers was anxious about heading off to Feral! all Monday night, and in bed it had gotten to the point where he was worried something tragic and final was going to happen. "It feels like I'm saying goodbye," he told me while he hugged me.
At the time I didn't think much of it, because this is an anxiety we share. Whenever I'm about to jump into a potentially-disastrous social situation, I spend the days leading up to it in an increasing panic that things will turn out terribly. I'll be awkward, or way too shy, and end up spending most of my time alone. Or I'll do or say something so embarrassing that I could never socially recover. Then, I go to the convention, have a great time, and come out of it really energized and grateful.
I'm hoping the same happens for Sneppers. :) But it is scary, heading off to an isolated place of mostly-strangers, most of whom have formed a friend group over decades. I get why he'd be nervous.
Maybe it was the schedule interruption, or too many nights of too little sleep catching up with me, but after dropping him off on Tuesday morning I was gripped with that same fear: that some catastrophe would befall him. I couldn't shake it, and no matter how much I tried to calm down my heart kept racing and I kept feeling...disconnected from my body, like my consciousness is a balloon floating around but just...anchored to my body.
I'm learning now this is what my body feels like when it's disregulated.
I watched this video yesterday because I was curious about how the psychiatric community thought about the overlapping symptoms between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) -- especially since BPD and CPTSD tend to develop in response to early traumas.
What I found is that all of these conditions (including Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD) share this hypersensitivity of the nervous system in various ways. We tend to get overwhelmed with stimulation and that throws us into into, I guess, a "trauma state" where our bodies are replaying these intense situations and we automatically go into whatever coping mechanism we've adapted. The exact trigger for this overwhelm depends on the diagnosis and personal factors, but my understanding is that with ADHD and ASD our surroundings alone can be overstimulation enough and with CPTSD and BPD the triggers tend to be more specific.
Either way, once we're disregulated, it can be really hard to use the coping mechanisms that serve us better because the executive function tends to shut down and we're thrown into autopilot. For me, fleeing, freezing, and fawning are my maladaptive coping strategies, so when I'm in that bad brain state I look for ways to confirm "an unjust peace", let's say -- remove myself from the situation if I can, and lately, dissociate through marijuana. My instinct is to just not touch any emotion that's "too hot", but since I am who I am that's...most of them.
So: all this to say that I see how ADHD and CPTSD are futzing with my nervous system. I am often overstimulated by my environment and thus tend to get thrown into headspaces where I am...subconsciously craving escape like, all the time. I seek peace and quiet, but when that's not available I escape through any means I can find. That often means I'm leaning way too hard on crutches that make it easier to just not feel things.
I haven't talked much at all about FFXIV here, so I'll do my best to summarize. Final Fantasy XIV is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, or MMORPG, or MMO to get it down to a TLA. In an MMO, you control a character engaging in a mostly-linear yet living story, set in an open world populated by other people as well as "non-player characters" (NPCs) -- characters programmed into the world for some purpose. That purpose could be moving the story along, selling gear to players, or serving as an access point for mini-games and optional quests. It all adds up to an experience where you and your buddies -- or complete strangers -- squad up to save a cool fantasy realm from some kind of evil.
In XIV, the fantasy realm is Eorzea, a continent on a star called The Source. Your character is the Warrior of Light, a hero who discovers their personal connections to a reality-bending conflict spanning space and time -- mostly by helping other people find THEIR callings. (Seriously, SO many story quests involve helping the people you meet find their jobs, it's weird but endearing.) The Warrior of Light (or WoL) can be any of eight races -- the humanoid Hyur; the tall and pointy-eared Elezen; the huge, earth-hued Roegadyn; the tiny and resilient Lalafell; the felinoid Miqo'te; the draconic Au Ra; the leporine Viera; and the burly, leonine Hrothgar.
MY WoL is a Hrothgar named Sun Gura. He started life as a Viera but, in my headcanon, changed when his soul was claimed by the ancient dragon Midgardsormr. (In reality, the male Viera models were soooo plastic and expressionless I had to make the switch. >.>) Even though the main story of XIV doesn't give you a lot of room for variation, I think it does a great job of encouraging players to make their relationships with the NPCs their own. Your main companions belong to a group called the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and most folk who play have different favorites. I'm ride-or-die for Alphinaud and Alisaie.
(I'm taking a stab at...writing explanatory stuff for audiences who might not be familiar with it and figured this might be as good a space as any. It's tricky, figuring out how to bundle and pace information so that it's engaging. Here's to hoping I get better at it!)
At the time I didn't think much of it, because this is an anxiety we share. Whenever I'm about to jump into a potentially-disastrous social situation, I spend the days leading up to it in an increasing panic that things will turn out terribly. I'll be awkward, or way too shy, and end up spending most of my time alone. Or I'll do or say something so embarrassing that I could never socially recover. Then, I go to the convention, have a great time, and come out of it really energized and grateful.
I'm hoping the same happens for Sneppers. :) But it is scary, heading off to an isolated place of mostly-strangers, most of whom have formed a friend group over decades. I get why he'd be nervous.
Maybe it was the schedule interruption, or too many nights of too little sleep catching up with me, but after dropping him off on Tuesday morning I was gripped with that same fear: that some catastrophe would befall him. I couldn't shake it, and no matter how much I tried to calm down my heart kept racing and I kept feeling...disconnected from my body, like my consciousness is a balloon floating around but just...anchored to my body.
I'm learning now this is what my body feels like when it's disregulated.
I watched this video yesterday because I was curious about how the psychiatric community thought about the overlapping symptoms between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) -- especially since BPD and CPTSD tend to develop in response to early traumas.
What I found is that all of these conditions (including Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD) share this hypersensitivity of the nervous system in various ways. We tend to get overwhelmed with stimulation and that throws us into into, I guess, a "trauma state" where our bodies are replaying these intense situations and we automatically go into whatever coping mechanism we've adapted. The exact trigger for this overwhelm depends on the diagnosis and personal factors, but my understanding is that with ADHD and ASD our surroundings alone can be overstimulation enough and with CPTSD and BPD the triggers tend to be more specific.
Either way, once we're disregulated, it can be really hard to use the coping mechanisms that serve us better because the executive function tends to shut down and we're thrown into autopilot. For me, fleeing, freezing, and fawning are my maladaptive coping strategies, so when I'm in that bad brain state I look for ways to confirm "an unjust peace", let's say -- remove myself from the situation if I can, and lately, dissociate through marijuana. My instinct is to just not touch any emotion that's "too hot", but since I am who I am that's...most of them.
So: all this to say that I see how ADHD and CPTSD are futzing with my nervous system. I am often overstimulated by my environment and thus tend to get thrown into headspaces where I am...subconsciously craving escape like, all the time. I seek peace and quiet, but when that's not available I escape through any means I can find. That often means I'm leaning way too hard on crutches that make it easier to just not feel things.
I think taking this week to just let myself stare at a blank wall (metaphorically speaking) and "discover" my personal frequency would be a useful exercise. I, of course, won't lack for company: Yeen and Grog will be meeting up for Friday Night Magic, and Wahson will be dropping by on Sunday for Movie Night. Ratty will be by for daily walks and such, and I might even see if a local fox/bear and kangaroo would be up to chilling sometime!
Meanwhile, in Final Fantasy XIV news...I haven't talked much at all about FFXIV here, so I'll do my best to summarize. Final Fantasy XIV is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, or MMORPG, or MMO to get it down to a TLA. In an MMO, you control a character engaging in a mostly-linear yet living story, set in an open world populated by other people as well as "non-player characters" (NPCs) -- characters programmed into the world for some purpose. That purpose could be moving the story along, selling gear to players, or serving as an access point for mini-games and optional quests. It all adds up to an experience where you and your buddies -- or complete strangers -- squad up to save a cool fantasy realm from some kind of evil.
In XIV, the fantasy realm is Eorzea, a continent on a star called The Source. Your character is the Warrior of Light, a hero who discovers their personal connections to a reality-bending conflict spanning space and time -- mostly by helping other people find THEIR callings. (Seriously, SO many story quests involve helping the people you meet find their jobs, it's weird but endearing.) The Warrior of Light (or WoL) can be any of eight races -- the humanoid Hyur; the tall and pointy-eared Elezen; the huge, earth-hued Roegadyn; the tiny and resilient Lalafell; the felinoid Miqo'te; the draconic Au Ra; the leporine Viera; and the burly, leonine Hrothgar.
MY WoL is a Hrothgar named Sun Gura. He started life as a Viera but, in my headcanon, changed when his soul was claimed by the ancient dragon Midgardsormr. (In reality, the male Viera models were soooo plastic and expressionless I had to make the switch. >.>) Even though the main story of XIV doesn't give you a lot of room for variation, I think it does a great job of encouraging players to make their relationships with the NPCs their own. Your main companions belong to a group called the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and most folk who play have different favorites. I'm ride-or-die for Alphinaud and Alisaie.
(I'm taking a stab at...writing explanatory stuff for audiences who might not be familiar with it and figured this might be as good a space as any. It's tricky, figuring out how to bundle and pace information so that it's engaging. Here's to hoping I get better at it!)
