November AMA

Along with some updates, and a selection of your feedback!

Nov 29, 2023

Hi,

It’s been awhile since I’ve done an Ask-Me-Anything on here, so today’s the day. Ask anything you like in the comments section, and I’ll be checking in today and tomorrow to answer.

Your Feedback

Before I get to your questions, I just wanted to include a bit of your feedback over the last month. After finally writing about ADHD, I got a torrent of feedback and very happily realised what a neurodivergent group Webworm is. Some of the comments, like this one from R, were pretty real:

“One thing I was NOT warned about when I got my diagnosis was the freefall that lasts for a while after. Skill regression is real. Recontextualising your whole life is real. It’s exhausting.
And sometimes knowing that your executive dysfunction is the root of the problem doesn’t make it any less frustrating. There was research done that showed ADHD kids receive tens of thousands more pieces of criticism by the age of ten than non ADHD kids and we internalise that a lot.
It’s a biiiig fucking mess to sort through for sure. I got my autism diagnosis at the same time — there is a very high rate of comorbidity — and I would say it took about six months before I felt like I’d not made a mistake by getting a formal diagnosis. It was like the foundations of my sense of self got demolished. The temptation to deny it and push back on it all was strong. But eventually things fit into place and it ended up worth it. Worth it more than I could ever have imagined.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but just trying to say: Post diagnosis can be a really difficult and confusing and frustrating time, but it gets better. It gets so much better. It is worth it.”

Some things in that ring true for me, others not. But the feedback (literally hundreds of insightful comments) is a wonderful resource, and I feel lucky it sits here at Webworm. And R’s comment — “It was like the foundations of my sense of self got demolished” — reminds me of my time deconstructing the Christianity of my childhood.

But honestly, if you’re curious about this stuff, the comments section is a hive of shared experiences. I also liked what Phillipa added:

“The Māori word for ADHD is aroreretini - attention goes to many things. I like that much better.”

The weight of the world continues to feel incredibly heavy. As weight tends to do. And clearly you’re feeling it, too. The comments under Hayden Donnell’s piece about free speech and Palestine were pretty sobering. One Webworm reader works in the healthcare system in Aotearoa and had this to say:

“Thanks for writing this important piece David and Hayden.
The silence is deafening. The medical community in New Zealand and Australia have been accused of anti-semitism, and reported to our medical councils for speaking out against genocide. This, in the context of hospitals being targeted, patients undergoing surgery without anesthesia, and 200 healthcare workers killed in the last six weeks, is truly unfathomable.
This is a good article written by our colleagues in Australia
“So where does our duty of care as Australian doctors begin and end? Does it terminate at colleagues and patients we can see and touch in front of us? At our local community, or our national borders?”
Kudos to all who have spoken out and continue to do so. Free Palestine.”

Hayden replied to that comment with this:

“It’s similar in our profession. This has been the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent memory and there's good evidence that some reporters have been deliberately targeted by the IDF. Besides anything else there should be an element of professional solidarity in speaking out for peace. Instead journalists and editors have been fired or forced out of their organisations for doing so.”

With that in mind, huge respect to The Guardian who today asked “The mass slaughter of media workers is a horror within a horror. Where is the outcry from the global journalistic community?”

That piece is worth a read:

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), this is the deadliest conflict for media workers they have ever recorded. A total of at least 57 – comprising 50 Palestinian and seven foreign journalists – have suffered violent deaths; another 100 have been injured, all in just seven weeks. To put those numbers in perspective, according to the International Federation of Journalists, a total of 68 media workers were killed on a global scale in the whole of 2022.

Fuck.

Finally, I’m glad you enjoyed the Mister Organ deleted scenes newsletter. A bunch of you shared your own encounters with similar dark characters. It made for fairly unsettling reading, and is a reminder that these people are everywhere. Which was sort of the point of the movie.

“My Mr Organ’s were my CEO & COO.
After 8 years on the Exec, successfully delivering & held in high esteem in our industry, I was suddenly in the dark, excluded & defending insane accusations. The next two years were like fighting a cloud, unable to see the attacks let alone defend them, while watching my reputation slowly implode. Like C, I was isolated and detached from reality. You start believing what you’re accused of because you're not used to being told outright lies. It was terrifying.
I’m still recovering from the 20 month legal fight which cost my health & over $165,000 in legal fees. I won the case although not in the whole sense; there were many lies I couldn't disprove; I’ll never get my health back and mud sticks.
But I’m out of there & was also able to validate my team who suffered via association.”

All I can really say is that I see you, and fuck you’re brave.

In that piece I also told you about ‘Circles’ the kitten, who was suffering from some kind of neurological condition that only allowed the little mite to turn left.

One reader had a story about a similar cute creature — their grandfather.

“My grandfather had a neck issue, so couldn’t turn his head to the left fully. That meant turning right would be perilous because you have to cross two lanes and check in both directions. He would plot out driving routes that would only require left turns, and was able to function like that for ages.”

Bless.

You’ll be glad to know Circles is doing great (they’re getting pretty good at walking in a straight line — still no turning right, though), and have been adopted by a Webworm reader in Austin — the very same reader who wrote the amazing essay about surviving their own Mister Organ.

Let’s Get To Your Questions

In the future I want to remember to share more of your feedback, because it brings me a lot of insight and joy. I read all the comments you leave — and so sometimes I’ll highlight some of it.

Finally, before I get to answering your questions — a few songs have been on high rotation this week. Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Together’ has been filling in my walks, and Liam Finn has just released the delightful ‘I Just Want You To Be So Happy’.

And Kumo 99 has a whole new record out called Headplate. The final track, ‘Moths And Peonies’, can only be described as absolute joy — and I can’t stop listening to it.

Okay — chat in the comments.

David.

Webworm with David Farrier

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