Shopping clothes is a huge issue for me. What I sometimes describe as "clothing store phobia", can perhaps be broke down to:
(Fear of) sensory overload: harsh lighting, music, advertisements, amounts of clothes and information to process
Anxiety because of uncertainty (e.g. about the available products and their prices)
Social phobia: Sometimes there are a lot of people in shops. Will they judge me for being "weird" (queer & neurodiverse)? Will I be brave enough to ask the sellers if I have some question? What if someone interacts with me and my brain shuts down?
Agoraphobia
Perhaps lightly traumatic experiences from sensory overload from previous store visits
After I broke down the problem, I can try to find coping strategies:
Try to find the product range online.
To counter overstimulation, wear protective items such as earplugs (and perhaps blue light-filtering glasses, which I still want to get), and stim rigorously.
Go at a time where there are less people.
Also plan in time for recovery.
If I can look inside the shop from the outside, discretely observe the place and the people; try to make an "mental map", so that I know where to go.
First time go only quickly, to get a better overview of the place; next time I'll have fewer fear of going to a new place.
Apply hyper-focus and only look for one particular kind of item (e.g. midi-skirts). That means that I also have to make thoughts which kind of style I want to wear.
Remember that I don't need to buy anything!
If I don't have spoons for fitting clothes, buy them and try them out at home. I can later either return them later or donate them.
Avoidance is still a viable strategy. Buying online can be comfortable, since I'm in a familiar environment where I can dim the lights and block ads & animations. I can carefully compare the sizes with my measurements, so that I have to return (and try on) less.
I previously wrote about this issue on Mastodon, and I included some of the advice I got from there: https://todon.eu/@maxi/110338158852163385 (Unfortunately, part 2 of that toot got auto-deleted, but it only was about how to find a personal style)
I also got a lot of good advice from hashtags and groups!
Ich habe das Gefühl, hier einiges zu verpassen und möchte einfach gerne (wieder) eine Timeline, die mit klugen, spannenden und interessanten Beiträgen gefüllt ist. Themen sind #Geschichte#Museum#Archiv#Erinnerungskultur#PublicHistory
Werft mir also bitte und gerne eure Vorschläge für Follows zu 😊.
Ich folge bereits @dorotheegoetze / @LenaOetzel / @dbellingradt usw. aber verstehe die Discovery hier immer noch nicht ganz und bin über eure Tipps sehr froh!
from the Autistic members of the Kentucky Advisory Council on Autism: we're seeking input from all Autistics who have experienced thoughts of suicide, whether or not you live in Kentucky we want to hear what you have to say
As more mainstream media open accounts here on Mastodon, try to follow them. As they build up audiences here, it will make it easier for them to abandon that Xhit site over there.
Does anyone have a list of good media accounts here?
@neilhimself
People here have resorted to taking screenshots of your twitter account and posting the images here. I humbly suggest moving your social media off of twitter. We love you here. And we have better moss and bird photos.
Ooblets is a relaxing and offbeat farming, town life, and creature collection game. Manage your farm, grow and train your ooblets, explore strange lands, and have dance-offs!
#ChameleonMoon - An entirely #queer (including polyam, and #asexual-led) cast of superheroes survive a permanently-burning city with the power of love and rock n'roll!
Now getting an enhanced-audio #audiobook, which drops on #Halloween! More info on RoAnnaSylver.com!
@actualham This whole article hurts my heart, but the story of the Whitewater Faculty Senate chair who left academia because she saw no future in Wisconsin #HigherEd really resonated with me. Same reason I left UW-Madison 5 years ago. Republicans have gerrymandered themselves into permanent control of the state legislature, and they are outright contemptuous of the UW System. @academicchatter
@kcarr2015@MirrorAyako@allstartrek I no longer care about this as intensely as I did 25 years ago, but the whole "separate power supply for the holodeck" thing is a load of nonsense that somebody came up with in the 90s to justify lazy creative choices (which, to be fair, may have been foisted upon them by Rick Berman or UPN execs). To see it used on modern productions by people with way more creative freedom than the Voyager writers kind of annoys me. These people should know better.
@neilhimself god it's all so incredibly tender (both good and bad) to read and watch. We are truly in a special place with TV right now that we get access to this and some of the other truly beautiful stories which artists are rendering. I swear every week—I'm a psychotherapist—one of my clients references something to illustrate the pain in their own lives. Happened to me today with Sex Education (client referenced Maeve's mum's funeral), it's happened with Good Omens, WandaVision and others.