it-was-audhd-not-bipolar

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

A lot of this is true. However, I would like to clarify that ADHD is NOT a form of dysautonomia. It is a neurodevelopmental disorder. There is a higher incidence of dysautonomia in people with ADHD, but ADHD itself, as we currently understand it, is NOT a form of dysautonomia.

If you are getting frequent episodes of tachycardia (fast heart rate), dizziness, fatigue, nausea, headaches, vision changes, fainting, brain fog, or anything else that concerns you, don't assume it's "just ADHD", see a doctor! These symptoms are not inherent to ADHD and ADHD has several very common comorbidities, some of which are dysautonomia, and there are treatments for them.

Some of these conditions include autism, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), and hypermobile EDS or Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD).

Some people with ADHD in addition to dysautonomia will not do well on stimulants because it will increase their heart rate too much. You need to take both conditions into account. They are not one and the same.

Not to go "if you have ADHD just go for a run" or anything, but I am so serious if you have ADHD you should regularly go outside, no headphones no phone no nothing and just stand and observe for a while until you've had enough. Not until you get bored, until you've had enough. Drink your coffee without watching tiktok. Have a bath without music. Turn down the volume in your headphones. I cannot overstate how much learning to be bored is cruicial with ADHD. Life is not just about pleasure, no matter what your dysregulated dopamine system thinks, and when you teach your brain to be okay with being bored, then boring tasks stop feeling like torture. By letting yourself be bored you are yoinking your system out of the high/low binary and allow for the highs to feel like actual highs and not just anything that isn't low. I am so serious go literally touch grass. Listen to the sounds in your flat. Stimulate your body the way it was designed. It lowers anxiety and makes you feel like you're real and best of all it's completely free

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

My doctor and therapist: now with this autism + ADHD diagnosis you need to learn to unmask because masking all the time will make you burn out again and feel like shit

Other people: well it's just interesting how after getting the diagnosis you suddenly start behaving like that I mean I'm not saying you're faking it's just funny how you suddenly cannot be normal like you were before

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

After months of psych evaluations and assessments...

@lesbianpolar -> @it-was-audhd-not-bipolar 🤗

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

Are you going to let trump out live you

…

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

its crazy how lolcow culture is mainstream to the point where people in my life will look at me like im the weird one for being like ‘no i actually dont want to watch compilations of random disabled people being stalked and tormented by neonazis with you i dont find that funny’

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

Pros of hyperfixiation:

Happy!

Art ideas

Life is good

Cons of hyperfixiation:

I am going to blow up

All my art is of the same guy

If I don't think about this 24/7 I get violent

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

I see so many people wondering why adults don't just get an autism diagnosis when they suspect that they are autistic. Let me share my experience with seeking an autism diagnosis thus far, and maybe you can begin to understand why an official diagnosis is FAR more difficult to get than people assume it should be:

- First, I went to my PCP to get a referral. He agreed that it was likely I have autism and ADHD and should be assessed.

- I then went on to my insurance provider's website to find someone who was capable of diagnosing autism. You can't just get diagnosed by any psychological specialist or therapist. Most doctors qualified to diagnose autism only work with children. Many psychologists will say that they can help to TREAT autism in adults, but they will not diagnose the condition.

- Out of all of the results, only two would diagnose autism in adults, and only one didn't exclusively practice ABA (I have zero interest in ABA therapy and don't feel like I can trust an ABA practitioner). This psychologist was over an hour away. I have good insurance from a large insurance company. I live in a major metropolitan area with one of the largest populations in the US, and this was all I could find.

- I made an appointment with the psychologist and went through pages of paperwork documenting my social and medical history. This process took hours to complete. The soonest they could get me in was in 3 months.

- Without insurance coverage, the assessment would cost $4,000 for autism, and an additional $2,000 for ADHD assessment. Many insurance providers do not consider assessments (only treatment) to be necessary and will not cover them at all. I was told my insurance would cover at least some of the cost, but was told me to figure out with my insurance provider how much I would owe on my own prior to my appointment.

- Less than a month before my appointment, they called to tell me that insurance would not approve the doctor that they had assigned me to (they were a new doctor who had never worked with my insurance before. They already had doctors in the office who do work with my insurance and chose to pass me off to someone who MIGHT be able to take my insurance), and getting an appeal would be a lengthy and difficult process. Rather than go through that, they told me they would refer me out... to a psychologist who was even farther away and only diagnosed children

- The only other psychologist who does autism assessments in adults within three hours of my home, and solely practices ABA, is not accepting new patients.

These are only some of the barriers that face adults seeking an autism diagnosis. I agree that we definitely need a better system for diagnosing the many adults who slipped through the cracks, but we have GOT to stop being so shitty to adults who suspect autism but do not have an official diagnosis in the meantime.

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

An autistic friend of mine just said this to me “The harder I work at communication the more people expect from me and the less they are willing to compromise.” and it is the most fucking heartbreaking thing I’ve heard.

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

The Late-Diagnosed Autistic experience of wanting to return to your childhood - not to be a child again, but rather to be the adult that your child self needed

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

Hey there 😊 just wanted to say a thing quick.. 💖

If someone has schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder or on the schizo spectrum, please do not say that they are gifted, that they’re clairaudient, telepathic or anything of that sort. I know you’re just trying to make sense of it all but please 💖✨don’t✨💖

It feeds into their hallucinations/delusions that they are experiencing and that is DANGEROUS to someone who is hallucinating *them already thinking that the voices are REAL, that they actually can read minds or that they are thought broadcasting and everyone can read their minds all while actually believing it to be real* and can lead to them thinking they have a gift and can lead to them putting themselves in danger by thinking that what they are being told while hallucinating is REAL because they “have a gift” or are “gifted”. I’ve been told this before early on when I was first diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder about 5 years ago I had to find out on my own with my diagnosis that not knowing what’s real and what is real is just apart of having this mental illness. We are not being haunted by demons or ghost’s, it is a mental illness just like anxiety or depression, and unfortunately we suffer from hallucinations, catatonia, depression, and labile affect(Inappropriate involuntary laughing and crying) amongst a lot more symptom’s, just like you take meds for anxiety and depression we also have to take medications, it is a mental illness and should be treated as such, with knowledge and treatment can help someone get clarity about their recovery and can help reduce their symptoms. Thank you for reading 💖✨😊

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

the curse of adhd:

i will remember with absolute clarity, when the thought strikes me that i have a text to send someone, that this is the fourth time in three days i've attempted to send this specific text

i will forget, in the time it takes me to pick up my phone, that i picked it up intending to send a text

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

I've been meaning to make this post for a while, but I haven't because it just feels kind of awkward.

I haven't been on this blog very much in quite some time, and that's mostly because I no longer think that I am Bipolar. After I started being treated for POTS, my mood swings decreased significantly. After several med changes, some new diagnoses (MCAS and hEDS), physical therapies, and starting to use different mobility/disability aids, these mood swings have gone away completely.

It's not unheard of for Bipolar Disorder to become dormant for a period of time, but I just feel like it's too big of a coincidence that my mood disorder would completely disappear not long after starting treatment for my physical conditions; one of which causes diminished blood flow to the brain. When I brought this up to my cardiologist, he told me that POTS frequently causes mood swings that can be mistaken for Bipolar Disorder if left untreated.

It makes so much sense now why I would worsen when I was forced to spend long periods of time on my feet and would improve with bedrest. It makes sense why my psych meds seemed to be so hit-and-miss. On the one hand, I am elated to have figured it out, but on the other, I am furious. I was subjected to so many different awful treatments, all while being treated as subhuman, for a disease which I likely never even had.

I have been completely off all psych meds for over a year now, and I continue to improve. I am fairly convinced that I have autism and adhd (pretty much everyone in my family does), but I don't see the point in getting officially diagnosed if I don't want to be forced to act Less Autistic.

I will be leaving up all the bipolar resources and memes that I have on this blog, but I likely won't post about Bipolar Disorder anymore, at least not in a personal way. I am debating a name change for the blog, but I'm not sure yet what I will be changing it to. I hope none of you feel like I was intentionally misleading anyone by "pretending" to be bipolar. I truly experienced everything that I said I have on this blog, and I honestly believed I was bipolar.

If you would like to keep up to date with my physical disability, as well as see physical disability content in general, you can follow me at @disabled-is-not-a-dirty-word . I have been running that blog for quite some time now, and I'm far more active on there.

As for this blog, I will continue to post and reblog any mental illness content that I come across, but I don't see myself being super active on here. Thanks to all of you who have supported me over the past few years. And if you suspect that something you are experiencing isn't normal, make sure to get it checked out. I had assumed for almost my entire life that not being able to stand still without vomiting was just some kind of quirk. Turns out, nope!

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

Love how this time change happens just around the time that you start to notice that the days are getting shorter. It's like they're going "hey, we know it's depressing that you only get an hour of daylight after work, so how about we push everything back by an hour so that you don't get any sunlight after work at all? Would that be good for you?" The time change is stupid to begin with, but why the hell do we need to save daylight IN THE SUMMER???

[it-was-audhd-not-bipolar]

informed consent for medication needs to include interactions with common recreational drugs, i think

most meds these days will only tell you 'limit alcohol' and wont even make a mention of weed (though if this is different in places that have legalised it i'd be interested to know). and they never tell you specifically why you should limit alcohol and thats something everyone should have the right to know

because i was terrified as a teen getting on the meds im on now, thinking i would never be able to drink and that i had to forgo taking my meds for the day if i did. then i learned that all my meds did was to increase the effects of alcohol and that the 'limit alcohol' warning in that case was more just a 'you will get drunk faster than you are used to'

but in other cases, such as with some antibiotics, the 'limit alcohol' means 'if you drink more than a little, this medication will stop working'

and some meds are actively dangerous when taken with alcohol/other drugs, putting you at risk of getting very sick or just dead

but every single time all you get is that little label saying 'limit alcohol'

anyway, i will once again shamelessly promote my favourite harm reduction website in the whole world, the drugs.com interactions checker. standard boilerplate applies that 'this isnt a substitute for medical advice from a professional' but its sure as fuck better than nothing