#ADHD Strategies

[pargery]

A diagnosis of A.D.H.D. that is communicated via the dominant medical model...can feel like a life sentence: “My child has A.D.H.D., a medical condition, so he needs to take this medicine every day,"

vs

the experience of taking medication might feel quite different if it was presented to them not as a medicine to fix their defective brain but as a tool to make an inhospitable environment more tolerable.

“I want my kid to succeed in environments for which he’s not well suited, so therefore I want him to take these pills.”

A.D.H.D. symptoms exist on a continuum, one on which we all find ourselves; that he may be experiencing those symptoms as much because of where he is as because of who he is...

Subject after subject spontaneously brought up the importance of finding their “niche,” or the right “fit,” in school or in the workplace.

For all of them, what made a difference was having work that to them felt “intrinsically interesting.”

..." I can have an attention span for extremely long for the things that I care about.”

From

[aunti-maim]

This next week's ACCOUNTABILITY GOAL is 12 hours of serious jewelry supply sorting by Jan 18th AND going to both my Occupational therapy appointment 15th and the Pain management specialist 16th(weaning off of Opioids by March)

REWARD is 5 hours of CDramas

I know it sounds stupid to use CDramas as a Reward because normally people can just watch them or not as they choose but my ADHD and Dopamine deficiency makes movies that NEED subtitles addictive (actually most reading triggers my reward centers for some reason) add in the truly insane silliness of the ones I like and the dopamine hit is better than drugs (I want off of drugs not get MORE drugs)

I can spend DAYS (as in 40+ hours in a row) watching CDramas if I don't control it

Both ADHD and Fibromyalgia have issues with DOPAMINE DEFICIENCY and the advantage to have ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERS (my friend Anna and my partner Alex as well as this post) and setting a goal with a reward is it gives you AT LEAST 3 dopamine boosts:

1st when you succeed in accomplishing the task

2nd when you get to tell your accountability partners that you accomplished it

And 3rd when you get the actual reward

Dopamine boosts are one of the best motivators with ADHD and being aware of why you want and need dopamine, how to both get dopamine and what to increase the effects of the dopamine you get will help a lot especially since most people with ADHD (or AuADHD or Autism) get an added boost from understanding how things work.

[blueskymentalhealthclinic]

Coping techniques are essential tools that can help individuals manage stress and improve mental health. At a mental health clinic in Silver Spring, Maryland, professionals can guide you in discovering which techniques resonate with your unique needs.

[viggiq]

THIS THIS THIS

this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it

buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell

leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist

put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.

when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!

plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.

if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge

if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.

its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.

[hashtagmushlove]

6/13/2023 - DadHD

I have ideas that fly through my mind every day, and it just so happens, that ChatGPT is able to bounce these ideas off my mind very well, in a very productive manner, very, very quickly. So quickly, that I can almost create a whole business during a work day. Enter DadHD: The High Definition Father. I want to start a support group, that contains resources for fathers with ADHD and fathers to…

[meanya]

Now seems like a good time to introduce a strategy to all my ADHD peers that I've invented so I wouldn't be Late to everything!

It's called...

✨️ Disaster Time ✨️

You know that feeling when you wait til the last second to do something and THEN it seems like THAT'S when everything goes wrong??? Right when you need everything to go smoothly?

You're thinking "the office is only 10 minutes away, so I'll leave 10 minutes before my appointment time!" And THAT'S when it happens; You forget to brush your hair, you can't find your keys, your wallet is missing, your GPS is glitchy, there's traffic, there's a detour, you hit every red light, there's no parking, you enter the wrong door, you can't find the room, etc. There's always SOMETHING.

I used to get SO MAD when everything would go wrong while I was on a time crunch. It seemed like when I least expected it, suddenly every object that could possibly get in my way would get in my way. I used to think, "The universe is out to get me 😔 No matter what I do, everything is gonna go wrong."

And that's when a switch went off in my mind...

Everything is gonna go wrong when I least expect it to!!!

Therefore -> I should stop being surprised and just. Expect it to!!

Every time!

Hence, the invention of ✨️Disaster Time✨️

Disaster Time (noun) the extra time you alot for disasters.

If you just KNOW something's gonna go wrong and then just PLAN for something to go wrong! Then you'll always be ready for it!

Because something is always is gonna happen, right? Something is always gonna go wrong. You don't know what's gonna go wrong, so instead of hoping nothing goes wrong and then being disappointed when something does go wrong, just alot some Disaster Time!

So you think to yourself "the office is only 10 minutes away, so if I give myself 10 extra minutes of Disaster Time for when The Disaster happens, then I'll leave 20 minutes before my appointment time."

Your assignment's due at midnight? Disaster Time! Make it due at 11:40 to account for when the [internet goes out / file gets corrupt / website doesn't load / grammar errors pop up ]

Your hangout is at 8pm? Disaster Time! Give yourself 10 extra minutes to [find your missing phone / stop and grab some gas / brush your hair / quickly eat a snack]

Work at 9? Disaster time! Leave 15 minutes earlier for when [you spill coffee on your shirt / your car light goes off / you forgot something and have to go back]

People used to tell me to do things "early" but I have adhd and time blindness! "Early" doesn't exist!!! "Early" is an abstract concept! And "early" isn't as motivating as "The Last Second"

So instead, alot a set amount of Disaster Time and adjust your "last second" to account for that pesky inevitable Disaster, and you'll always be on time!

If you EXPECT that everything will go wrong EVERY time and just *account* for that when you plan, then you'll always be on time!

[viggiq]

also

keep mouthwash and dental floss next to ya bed

easier than overcoming executive dysfunction to get out of bed to brush

the most helpful thing i have ever seen from neurodivergent internet spaces is “THERE ARE OTHER TIMES OF DAY TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH”. this has genuinely saved me from executive dysfunction spirals so many times.

[youruinedmylifebynotbeingreal]

Soren is chronically late to everything that is not work related. If he’s Ezran’s bodyguard for the day? 20 minutes early. If Ezran asked him to go shopping in town as bros? 20 minutes late.

Until Corvus, who’s a stickler for punctuality.

For their first date, Corvus expects to be waiting at least 10 minutes. But actually, Soren knocks on his door 10 minutes early. Partially because he’s so excited, but also because he respects Corvus and his general distaste for people being late.

Slowly, this spreads to other aspects of Soren’s life.

Everybody in Soren’s life is glad that Corvus’s influence started actually having him be on time to things.

[writing-with-olive]

ADHD task completing tip

okay so growing up i was usually told "do the hard thing first and then you get to do the fun thing." and generally that's reasonable.... if you've got decent executive function. but for those of us who don't, this is a thing i've been using to get through school/work/general human functioning. It's still using hard thing/fun thing, but it interweaves them WAY more

first step: find something that sparks some dopamine quickly. i usually use short-timer online chess or mobile games. if you pick scrolling social media or something that doesn't have a clear endpoint, make sure you have an easy way to set a timer. On apple phones, there's a timer setting that says "stop playing" instead of playing a sound. I love this because it'll take you to your lock screen so you can't accidentally dismiss the timer and keep going. Do NOT make this movement or taking care of bodily functions; eating/hydrating/going to the bathroom/moving around are things you can and should do when your body tells you. take care of ya self

second step: look at your task and break it up TINY. If you have to write a paper, don't break it up by paragraph. break it up into something like fifty words. Cleaning a room: ten items put away. Close reading: 1 page. Really you want something that if your executive functioning was playing nice you could do in 1-4 minutes. I recommend NOT saying "work for x minutes" however, since that's a really quick way to sit there watching the clock. You wanna tie progress to completion not time spent.

third step: estimate how many levels/games/etc of your dopamine source it takes to last 1-5 minutes. Ideally you will already have a sense of this. I'd advise not "testing it out right now" and procrastinating that way.

fourth step: get to work. every time you complete a tiny task, you can do one unit of the dopamine thing. If you get some momentum, you can stack rewards, so if your tiny task was 50 words for one mobile game level, 150 words straight would be three levels. If you are having a really hard time getting going, you can start with 1-3 units of your dopamine thing to kinda jumpstart the process, just decide how many you're doing first so you don't lose hours to it.

note that this ONLY WORKS if you don't ignore your timer/level cutoff. The idea is to get dopamine levels up and use that to power through the next tiny task.

[thee-morrigan]

@serenpedac yes! (and thank you for the excuse to ramble further about Holland lol)

the most direct/short answer is that Holland's favorite/most long-term nanny, Anežka, taught her when she was little. Anežka often called her "beruška" (ladybug) as a pet name, and Holland, naturally, was interested in not only what that word meant, but what other ones she could learn. I like to think tiny!Holland would have felt a bit like it was a kind of secret language between them, because I can't imagine she knew many (or, more likely, any) other Czech speakers in rural Michigan!

the more ill-formed, rambly answer is that several years ago I went down a rabbit hole writing childhood/teenage Holland snippets as a developmental exercise for fleshing out more of her lore, which resulted in a folklore rabbit hole (i.e., deciding what type of supernatural(s) she might have unknowingly encountered as a kid), detoured into Slavic myths, and then ended up in Czech fairy tales🤷🏼‍♀️

Also! I didn't screenshot your other tag question, but the woman in the collage is actress Lucy Boynton, who is indeed her faceclaim (this is probably weirdly specific lol but something about the way she rolls her eyes is peak Holland energy to me. Like I saw a gif once and my brain immediately latched onto it and now here we are).

[aunti-maim]

This next week's ACCOUNTABILITY GOAL is 12 hours of serious jewelry supply sorting by Jan 18th AND going to both my Occupational therapy appointment 15th and the Pain management specialist 16th(weaning off of Opioids by March)

REWARD is 5 hours of CDramas

I know it sounds stupid to use CDramas as a Reward because normally people can just watch them or not as they choose but my ADHD and Dopamine deficiency makes movies that NEED subtitles addictive (actually most reading triggers my reward centers for some reason) add in the truly insane silliness of the ones I like and the dopamine hit is better than drugs (I want off of drugs not get MORE drugs)

I can spend DAYS (as in 40+ hours in a row) watching CDramas if I don't control it

Both ADHD and Fibromyalgia have issues with DOPAMINE DEFICIENCY and the advantage to have ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERS (my friend Anna and my partner Alex as well as this post) and setting a goal with a reward is it gives you AT LEAST 3 dopamine boosts:

1st when you succeed in accomplishing the task

2nd when you get to tell your accountability partners that you accomplished it

And 3rd when you get the actual reward

Dopamine boosts are one of the best motivators with ADHD and being aware of why you want and need dopamine, how to both get dopamine and what to increase the effects of the dopamine you get will help a lot especially since most people with ADHD (or AuADHD or Autism) get an added boost from understanding how things work.

[everyotherdoodle]

Penelope was up to something, I just know it

You know, I think the suitors should've seen their deaths coming, maybe not by Odysseus himself, but like they should've been worried more for their lives than trying to gain Penelope's hand in marriage, or more accurately Ithaca's throne. Listen I have no doubt in my mind that if Penelope wanted to she could've gotten rid of the suitors herself because lest we forget that she was from SPARTA, and you don't mess with Spartans. Which then leads me to believe that Penelope knew something, or at least was up to something. Why else would she ALLOW these men who have done nothing but cause trouble in her home for the last 10 if not 20 years! Did she know what was going on with Odysseus, did she have another plan, was she just waiting until Telemachus could become king of Ithaca, she had to be up to SOMETHING!

I mean she clearly must've had some kind of idea of what was happening when speaking to disguised-old-man Odysseus.

[pathetic-gamer]

there he is........

[and-fishing-equipment]

having adhd is wild because i will think my mood swings aren't as bad as they used to be and then i get sick and don't exercise for a week and suddenly my body remembers that it has everything-is-pissing-me-off disease and will make me an immobilized worm writhing on the floor dangling on the edge of the abyss. then i go lift some weights and my body is like oh sorry :) where was i? oh yes. let's fold some laundry. like bffr

[lace4forest]

The Hero of Chaos doesn't do Meetings...

Okay, so we did this on stream! So we talked a LOT about our thoughts on this piece! (I'll make a time laps later!) ANYWAYS-

THE HERO OF CHAOS- So that's a title in the Zelda Timeline that is just sitting there???? We came to a head canon that the Hero of Chaos was who the Fierce Deity USED to be!

Basically, this is set before Hyrule Kingdom was established, so Zelda here is actually Sonia's Grandmother!

The City of Hylia is having trouble with some bandits, Zelda is the leader because (Blood of the Goddess) and her Captain likes to call war meetings. Link here is just a woodworker, who was dragged into this. He was friends with Zelda (And maybe the happy mask salesmen??) and decides to help out the best he can.

Throughout the story, Link has to take on more and more Chaotic energy to be able to stand up to the Demon Majora, in the end, Link was able to seal the Demon into a mask, but was corrupted to the point of no return, so Zelda was forced to seal him into the Fierce Deities mask.

No text version below.

[my-pjo-stuff]

Okay but......... imagine if Luke reincarnates as a demigod child of Nemesis.

And he actually has a fairly decent home life and manages to get to camp safely.

So suddenly Annabeth is confronted with a child with hauntingly familiar eyes, a strong sense for justice-

-and also an abnormal interest in anything concerning revolts or revolutions against unjust systems.