IWSG my Maladjusted Hat

HATS 

(Wait for explanation)

I have a question. HOW does one comment on Substack blogs in the IWSG without creating an account on that platform. OBVIOUSLY it can be done, because it's right there in the rules, so I know there has to be a way. I can't figure it out. Is it because I'm using my phone? 📱

Anyone? Because when I click "post" it wants a profile and sign up thing. And I haven't found the work around. 

HATS

See, I put together the above yesterday.

Maladjusted 

It's another word they used in the early '90s. Gen X people were not neuro divergent or autistic or have ADD / ADHD. (Gen Y, they stood in lines at the nurse for their pills 💊, Gen X just got blamed and yelled at, like all generations before us.)

Seventh grade, we got new school planners. In addition to being a requirement to put homework assignments in them, they also listed school rules.

HATS MUST BE WORN INSIDE THE SCHOOL. Upon passing through the entrance, all hats and head coverings (including, but not limited to, baseball caps, scarves, wigs, etc, unless medical exceptions have been given prior approval) are to be removed and must be stored in the locker or closet for the duration. 

🤔 If you're normal, that rule didn't get your attention.

If your brain 🧠 has been training, you see a typo. (If you're an informed activist, you see that a Klan member wrote it to screw with certain people.) 

But if you're maladjusted (note the name of my blog), you'll understand what I did.

I went to the office to ask for a hat. 

🥺🧢 I didn't bring one. I didn't know about the new rule. 😭 

"What are you talking about? Go to class!"

If you're normal, you'd think I'd shut up about it. My friends begged me to shut up about it. 

But I was disobeying a rule! And, umm... not totally sure how to obey the rule. Which, by the way, EVERYONE was breaking! We're supposed to remove them and then wear them while storing in lockers or closets. Our lockers were freaking small, the slender ones that barely held a backpack 🎒. How were we supposed to store ourselves? 

I eventually ended up in the guidance counselor's office about this. 

Who, eventually, realized I wasn't trying to be a little shit. 

I was genuinely upset because I felt I was breaking a rule. There had to be some way for me to obey this rule! The fact that the other 500 people in the building were breaking the rule didn't matter to me. I WAS BEING BAD. And I desperately needed to be able to obey the rule. I wasn't being an asshole. This was a genuine breakdown of a good kid who didn't understand.

He took my planner and grabbed a red pen. ^NOT 

"Better?" 

I stopped crying.

"What about everyone else's planners?"

"If they notice, I'll fix it. If you see something like this again, please come tell me."

"Okay. So I'm not breaking a rule?"

"Nope. Look at what it says now. See? You're behaving. Okay?" 

I'm better as an adult.

But

It isn’t as if I'm on medication for this. Or have any actual professional help.

So

Sometimes 

Like a splinter in the mind

I get obsessed over a rule.

And feel there must be a way for me to obey that rule. 

(Do not take me to a Bible study. You will find out how many contradictions are in there.) 

(I'm diabetic and have stage 3 chronic kidney disease. The food plans contradict themselves. And omg you don't want to know about my meltdown trying to figure that out, because the Internet has a whole trash heap of more information. Including a very trusted site that says I should eat CANDY 🍬.  And my doctor had to explain that's for stage 5 people who can't get calories from anywhere else and.... you DO NOT want to know.)

Maladjusted 

I'm not normal. (I'm not perfect. I make mistakes and typos.) And sometimes I get obsessed with the dumbest things that don't matter to ANYONE and have zero impact on the world. And sometimes it takes a friend to shake me out of a meltdown. 

But see how well I recall that hat story? 

Because it still bothers me a little.

I know fully right well that it was a typo. I'm a grown-up, I know.

But it's still in my head. I haven't thought about it in years. 

But trying to figure out how to comment without creating an account on that platform, it derailed me. 

And my brain 🧠,  all maladjusted, was 100% certain that everyone else in the group knew how to do it. That I was failing. AND I FELT INSECURE (as a person, not just a writer).

And, yeah, probably other people just skipped those or made accounts. I'm probably, no, I am definitely, the only butt nugget who obsessed over this. 

It's me. 

It's just me.

And I know that. 

Because I am maladjusted. 

But I'm an adult so I have to just get over it.

Except my brain is forever going to try to work this out. Even though it doesn't matter.

IT DOESN'T MATTER.

It does not matter.

The hats don't matter.

The inability to comment with creating an account doesn't matter. 

This has no impact on my life, on the world, on absolutely anything.

It doesn't matter. 

Unimportant.

Please don't contradict that.

It's the mantra. 

I have to keep telling myself that it doesn't matter. I'm maladjusted, that's why it matters to me. But it doesn't actually matter. It is not important. 

And I will NOT bring it up again. 🤐🙊

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