rip-adhd

[rip-adhd]

"just write a little every day" ok but what if i write nothing for 3 weeks and then suddenly type like i’m being hunted by god

[rip-adhd]

hyperfixation please stay with me long enough to complete the project. hyperfixation do not fade. hyperfixation finish what you started for the love of god

[rip-adhd]

actually as simple as it sounds i think a big step in autism acceptance would be to respect people's wishes. everyone's. not just people you "know are autistic".

[rip-adhd]

“what’s your dream job” im so glad you asked. picture this. i am the lone employee of a strange and mysterious tchotchke/bookshop in the middle of nowhere, full of fun and interesting things that i am allowed to take for the low low price of free of charge. i get one, exceedingly interesting, customer per hour. i work no more than twenty hours a week and am salaried 3 million dollars

[rip-adhd]

As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one thing that’s been helping me grapple with the intense shame I have over all my “wasted potential” is accepting that potential doesn’t exist and never did.

This sounds so harsh, but please bare with me.

I procrastinated a lot growing up. I still procrastinate today, but less so. And yet, I got good grades. I could write an A+ paper that “knocked [my professor]’s socks off” in the hour before class and print it with sweat running down my face.

I was so used to hearing from teachers and family that if I just didn’t procrastinate and worked all the time, I could do anything! I had all this potential I wasn’t living up to!

And that’s true, as far as it goes, but that’s like saying if Usain Bolt just kept going he could be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Why does he stop at the end of the race??

If ANYONE could make their top speed/most productive setting the one they used all the time, anyone could do anything. But you can’t. Your top speed is not a speed you’re able to sustain.

Now, I’ve found that I do need to work on not procrastinating. Not because the product is better, even, but because it’s better for my mental health and physical health to not have a full, sweating, panicked breakdown over every task even if the task itself turns out excellently. It’s a shitty way to live! You feel bad ALL the time! And I don’t deserve to live like that anymore.

So all of this to say, I’m not wasting a ton of potential. I don’t have an ocean of productivity and accomplishments inside of me that I could easily, effortlessly access if I just sat down 8 hours a day and worked. There’s no fucking way. That’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s fine not to live up to an illusion.

And if you have ADHD, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: you do not have limitless potential confounded by your laziness. You have the good potential of a good person, and you can access it with practice and work, but do not accept the story that you are choosing not to be all that you are or can be. You are just a human person.

[rip-adhd]

I do love the phrase executive dysfunction bc the image it conjures is of a bunch of people wearing business suits around a long oval conference table  arguing with each other to the point where they’re getting into physical fights, but in the background there’s just a big empty whiteboard with a To Do list with one item on it and that item is “take shower”

[rip-adhd]

my biggest creative passion in life is ‘the project I’m not supposed to be working on right now’

[rip-adhd]

just FYI!

[rip-adhd]

[rip-adhd]

[rip-adhd]

Not telling your kid they have a learning disability, chronic illness, mental illness etc. so they can “feel normal” actually does the opposite. They will not feel normal if they do not have the context to understand that their normal will be different from that of their peers.

[rip-adhd]

[rip-adhd]

Don't become so afraid of being annoying that you don't allow yourself to be anything at all.

[rip-adhd]

Why is it that shows accidentally portray autism or ADHD well without ever realizing it, but any time they try to intentionally do it they fail terribly at it.

[rip-adhd]

I have a very impressive ability. I have the power to think about doing a task, and then not do it. the best part is I'm not even having fun, I feel bad the entire time

[rip-adhd]

Only two ADHD tasks

1) this task will take me five minutes but I couldn’t possibly do it because I have an appointment in six hours

2) this task will take five hours but I’ll just do it first thing in the morning before I leave

[rip-adhd]

The thing about ADHD is that the "lack of reward chemicals in your brain" doesn't just mean that you don't want to do any tasks that don't feel particularly yummy :(, it means that your brain will look at chores and tasks that need to be done like "doing this would be painful and tedious for absolutely nothing to gain from it, Do Not Do That." The same thing that your brain tells you about everything else that would feel really bad and hurt the entire time that you're dying. The part of your brain that stops you from doing the thing is the same part that keeps you from shoving your arm into a wood chipper.

With unmedicated, unmanaged ADHD, "I have to do this assignment or I fail and my life will be ruined and I die" feels like a SAW trap, every single time.