Struggling-academic - Chronically Ill, Chronically Struggling

window watching

i sit in the window and stare out at the world. life goes on, the trams and birds and people go about their days, and in the window, i remain still. i watch the birds with particular interest, i envy them their wings. it's windy today, and i can see them playing with the currents, flying in intricate patterns that only they can see.

what i wouldn't give to fly again...

At the start of one of my many attempts at uni (we're no joke on number seven) I took an anthropology class because it seemed cool. This was at the absolute height of the popularity of Bones so the first lecture was literally standing room only, fire hazard levels of packed.

So the professor comes in and I cannot express enough how much this man was actually round, not tall, greying, balding, and literally wearing a three-piece tweed suit with a little red bow tie. He was the most perfect human being I've ever met.

Anyway the look on his face when he saw an actually packed lecture theatre was one of sheer unbridled glee. Natural, right? His dinky little subject is suddenly unbelievably popular.

Which gave him the perfect opportunity to talk about pissing for a solid hour. Because that was his specialist subject. Comparative urination etiquette.

This man who was the Platonic ideal of a humanities professor stood there and talked enthusiastically about piss to a packed to the rafters lecture theatre full of bright-eyed first years, and as this was a Monday morning it was almost certainly many people's first ever university lecture of their whole life. His eyes were glittering with joy the whole hour. He was having the time of his life.

There were absolutely no questions at the end of the lecture. He, apparently having fully understood what he was doing, clearly expected this and instructed us to have a lovely day and wished us good luck on our higher education journey.

You could sit anywhere you wanted in the lecture theatre the next week and the lecture was intro to methods in anthropology.

I don't think I could ever love a man more than I still love him.

Your friends and family with chronic pain aren't doing well.

Yes, even the ones that say they are.

Yes, especially the ones that are complaining and lashing out already.

Chances are high that however bad they will admit things are it's actually worse. By a lot.

We're conditioned to be "okay". If we're breaking down at non scheduled times we aren't coping well. I promise.

Your sibling/partner/bestie/parent who is breaking down without preamble on a Tuesday is suffering. Be kind. We're sorry.

In the most ADHD moment of late, turns out I forgot to mention to my therapist of almost 2 months that I have, in fact, been diagnosed with ADHD 😂

How to Celebrate International Archaeology Day

🥳🥳🥳

recently when im tempted to say 'i'm gonna kill myself' i try to correct it into saying "im gonna walk into the river and become a trout" or some other form of that. this is my new thing

Further ideas: dig up your own backyard and see what you can find (if you live in an apartment, the local park will do), donate your body to science, go to a pathology museum (bonus points if you dress up like you're going into the field), donate your racist neighbor's body to science

International Archaeology Day is coming up, here's some ways to celebrate: Punch a Nazi in the face, learn about Otzi the Iceman, debunk everything a conspiracy youtuber says, debate a young earth creationist, try to find the tomb of Genghis Khan, sell your soul in exchange for the secrets of the past, be like Indiana Jones by punching a Nazi in the face, dress up as Romans. Those are just a few of my ideas

Sleep Tax

so I've been thinking about something and I'm gonna call it sleep tax

basically, because of my ADHD I need a bit of extra time to get ready in the morning, but also the earlier I wake up the more time I need cause I'm also dealing with sleep deprivation.

So like, if I need to leave home at 8:30 I need to fully wake up by 7:30 so my first alarm has to be at 7:00 so I have time for a few snoozes and an hour to get ready. If I have to leave by 8:00 though I need to wake up fully by 7:00 to even have a chance of getting ready in time and my first alarm has to be around 6:20.

And it gets worse if it's cold cause now there's the extra step of forcing myself into the cold and the cold makes everything else harder to do. So now I have to wake up like 15 minutes earlier to give myself time for that but really my first alarm is way before that so I can have proper snoozing time. Like, Now to leave at 8:30 I have to fully wake up around 7:15 or earlier and my first alarm will be at 6:30.

Now, if waking up this early makes me sleep deprived for whatever reason. Like maybe I had a lot of work the night before, or I had a bad day and ended up staying up late on Tumblr trying to decompress to the point that I could get to sleep, or I just couldn't sleep. Then it'll start a cycle of not so great energy-sapping days where it's hard to sleep and I consistently get to bed closer to 1-2am. Now I'm getting like 6 or less hours of sleep a night and am getting very sleep-deprived so getting ready is even slower. Now I have to wake up even earlier to compensate for that. My first alarm now is at 6:20 (or earlier) so I can wake up at 7:00

And if I have to wake up earlier when I'm already waking up at 7:00 and have to leave around 8:00 instead of 8:30, well I just kind of die cause now I'm waking up at 6:45 with my first alarm at 6:00 or 5:55 all while getting less than 5 hours of sleep a night

So now I'm in this horrible cycle of getting more and more sleep deprived because the sleep deprivation and other stuff makes it harder and harder to get ready so I have to wake up earlier and earlier which makes my days more and more energy-sapping which means I stay up later and I get more sleep-deprived and I'm even slower getting ready and have to wake up earlier and on and on and on