Chương 943: Day Nine Hundred And Forty-One

Dear Diary, Yeah, I may have a touch of Oppositional Defiant Disorder to go with my ADHD, and it is an extremely unpleasant sensation to realize that it's screwing with my ability to maintain a healthy relationship, while simultaneously not being able to do anything about that shit. Seriously, that might be one of the biggest problems people have understanding all kinds of shit.

I can't count the number of times back in the day when I had something that I knew needed to be done, but no matter what I did to convince myself to do it, nothing fuckin' worked. I just sat there staring at whatever it was, wanting it, completely unable to do it.

Executive dysfunction, in my case most commonly from whatever the task was showing up as an absolute dopamine sink, something where I wouldn't get any reward when it was done, that required some of my brain's preciously hoarded dopamine to engage in, and whatever part of my brain controls that shit was just 'nope, can't do it, vibes are wrong', while I sat there, a prisoner inside my own head unable to clean up the fuckin dirty dishes in the sink until long past the time the fungus had evolved sapience, developed a growing civilization, and moved across the Atlantic to eat TERF brain.

I can sort of joke about it happening with shit that tripped my ADHD sponsored executive dysfunction, but when it comes to ODD it's a lot harder. Because if my dishes are all crusty I can just dump them in the trash, buy paper plates, and stop worrying about dishes. Meanwhile if my relationships wind up getting crusty, either I'm gonna get dumped or I pre-emptively dump my partner, which sucked back in the day, even when I was dating a dude who would start the relationship the moment I spread my legs.

Here and now I cannot let that stand. I just can't. But when I have to admit that maybe I was fuckin' wrong, that shit kicks in and I'm unable to say 'I'm sorry, I was wrong, can we talk this out', even when I really ought to. I'm not sure why it hasn't come up much before. I think it's because whatever part of me runs the Neurodivergence Department thinks that 'be dommed' is way more important than 'be independent' or some shit like that.

Then again, I'm not even sure my ODD is a thing; the school shrink talked about it once, said I might have it, that it might be comorbid with my ADHD and making it worse, and that she had some thoughts on ways to work around it. I'm not sure if she meant, like, meditation and exercise, or little mental gimmicks, or my favorite, pills I'd forget to take. Something about my brain getting splattered all over the Aquarium before I had a chance to meet with her again. So yesterday after dinner I got six kinds of cranky.

Even I realized I was throwing a silent bitch fit, and I was the one doing it. I couldn't even convince myself it was totally justified. Just showered, dried myself off, said, "I need some time to think," and stepped to the top of the West Tower. Note to self: the West Tower may or may not be as tall as the little saddle my office sits in, which is only slightly lower than the top of the mountain itself.

Now, these are Appalachian Mountains, which even here and now are a lot lower than the Rockies, or any of the big Europan mountains. So I'm not talking about needing breathing equipment or special training to get to the top of them. What I am talking about is the fact that up that high it gets coolish in the summer sometimes, and unlike my office saddle, the West Tower has nothing stopping the wind. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

In short, my preferred sulking spot was cold as fuck. Which isn't cold. Cold as a witch's tit. Which also aren't cold. I'd say 'cold as Hel', but she's not too bad and now that it's got some sunlight her eponymous realm isn't too bad either. Suffice to say my insufficiently dried off ass froze to the fuckin' tower long before I realized that. Fortunately my ass is made of sterner stuff than ice, as is the tower itself.

Some time around midnight I Co-Located to M-Space and watched my ladies all socializing in my Maw. Couldn't bring myself to join them, or to do the smart thing and go to sleep. So I sat there torturing myself watching them. In the morning, well before sunrise, I stepped down to the kitchen. Well, kitchens. Ours and the one at the Academy. I took my frustration out on vegetables, turning them into so much shredded hash, which I subsequently fried. Found some bacon and fried that along with the hash browns.

Marie joined me partway in, at which point I Co-Located and started doing laundry. Started cleaning. Went all day like that. Kept Co-Locating until I think I had as many of me washing, laundering, prepping, and cooking as there were at the Battle of the Walls. Wanted to talk with my ladies. Wanted to yell at them. Wanted them to yell at me. Realized at some point in there that I'd become the one angrily washing dishes.

Y'know, the old bit about 'you don't know what it's like to grow up traumatized until you've flinched when someone angrily washed a dish at you'. I think that's how that one goes. The worst part, the worst fucking part of all, is that I knew I was being stupid, knew I had to talk to someone, and couldn't fuckin' stop myself from what I was doing. Then disaster struck. Okay, little disaster. No big consequence, other than a massive avalanche of guilt. Down in the laundry, scrubbing at sheets, something caught.

Briefly. A horrible sound echoed through the room, and every Maenad's gaze snapped to me. A moment later Marie laid her claw on my forearm.

"Vlickies. Stop." I froze. I froze in part because I wanted to scream, to shout, to get angry. I froze in part because I didn't want to be angrily washing laundry. I didn't want to abuse my beautiful Murder Mittens. I was mad, yeah, but I wasn't even fuckin' sure it was justified. I froze, and she reached around and gently slipped the fabric out of my hands, let it drop into the tub I'd been using. A moment later, we stood in the Bedroom.

"I don't want..." Her claws slipped over my mouth.

"Just Privacy."

"For?" I snapped at her. She sighed, put her arms around me, and flopped us both over onto the bed. Naked, fur on skin, but her hands didn't roam. She just laid there holding me. Moments later, Saffron flopped onto the bed on my other side. Within a minute Siobhan and Tallulah joined them.

"Hush, love." I opened my mouth to snap at them, and she kissed me. Not an oral assault on my mouth, just pressing her lips against my cheek.

"We know you are angry with us. I don't really understand why. If you must punish us, we will accept that. If you need apologies, you will have them. But for now? Before we do any of that? Let us be here with you. Holding you. Suffusing you with the care we feel for you. Letting you know that if we offended you, hurt you, angered you, it was not done with that intent." She took a deep breath.

"Can you do that for us? With us?" I took a deep breath.

"Kids?" She smiled.

"Our children, one and all, are old enough now to survive an evening home alone without our supervision. They won't even be entirely without an adult, since they seem to have convinced Sarah that Dionysus needs socialization with his 'peers'." I closed my eyes. Doing things like this was hard. Even when I wanted to do them, knew I should do them. But just lying here, doing nothing, I thought maybe I could do that.

"Okay."