// why i’m a bitch on team projects//

i don’t make my schedule flexible. i don’t do meetings before 10am. i don’t explain why. i’m not available to work on weekends. sometimes i won’t get shit done on time. i don’t go out to drinks with my classmates. i don’t get personal with them. i’m not that friendly. i don’t like small talk. i do the work and i leave. i don’t explain why. 

the reason is to protect myself. 

depression is not something that comes out only when i have a breakdown. it’s something that sits on my back 24/7. all the time. that affects my work in ways able-minded people don’t understand and are usually intolerant of. 

i surf the net in class not because i don’t give a fuck about the material, but because i literally cannot focus on things for consecutive minutes. i need to be doing several things in order to absorb what’s happening in one. i need to focus, then break it, then focus, then break it, over and over because my brain can’t sustain a long period of paying attention. i used to think this was adhd before a therapist informed me it was common among people with depression. when i’m studying or doing readings, it’s shitty because i can barely read a page continually without needing to break off and come back. i end up going paragraph by paragraph sometimes. 

i don’t do weekends and early mornings because they’re scheduled for me. because when i didn’t schedule myself in, i would repeatedly overwork myself, overload my schedule, then have a huge breakdown and crash into panic attacks and suicidality. after my first suicide scare, i had to reduce my courseload to be able to function, i had to schedule 10-11 hours for sleep every night, to balance work and class and capoeira training and time with friends. i had to be uncompromising about it, even when classmates were rude and got pissy because i wouldn’t change my schedule to suit theirs. your schedule probably won’t escalate to a life or death situation. mine easily can.

sometimes i can’t do work because the depression paralyzes me, or because the anxiety freezes me in a loop of “FUCK i’m not getting any work done” “FUCK i’m not going to get any work done” #panic #panic “FUCK i’m panicking and therefore i’m not going to get any work done” and then i don’t meet deadlines and people think i’m lazy.

thing is, i am not obliged to explain ANY of this to my colleagues and classmates. especially when their response is most likely going to be ableist and minimizing to my experience. i am not obliged to flay my life open just to justify the accommodations i need, just so other people can sign off on my decisions. fuck peer approval. if you don’t affect my grades, i am fresh outta fucks. 

so i notify my professors, i notify when i can’t get shit done on time, i negotiate extensions and my registration with the disabilities center protects me in ways i know my classmates won’t, in ways i wouldn’t be able to. they advocate for me. and now if i’m having a rough week, i let myself have the rough week, and i get back to work when i can. 

i don’t identify as disabled, but i officially have a psychological disability and i’ll stay a bitch because society is fucking ableist and i do whatever the fuck is necessary to keep me alive and functioning. 

i regret nothing. 

ohkaii asked: do you know of some good (affordable) places to play capoeira in bk/manhattan?

hmm. i train with a group that i got into through NYU, and i applied for financial aid at the YMCA so i pay less than $40 a month and train at the Y. there was supposedly an additional fee on top of that for capoeira and i was never sure if i was exempt or not due to being on aid so i just never paid lol. its at the vanderbilt and west side ymca’s. single classes tend to average around $20, but there are SO many capoeira classes in NYC i wouldn’t even know where to start guiding you to :/

// can someone help me out with this?//

how on earth do you create composite photos without photoshop?

i just wanna put two pictures next to each other! google has not been helpful.

is there an app for it or something?