#hey google how do I learn perspective with ADHD and a lack of will to thrive?

[obsessivecelestial]

It’s lazy, it’s messy, I hate perspective, I hate crossed arms, why tf are her eyelashes so funky? Idfk. Don’t ask me. Art is hard 🥰🥰

[credulouscanidae]

re: learned helplessness post // (please know i am not intending rudeness)

the problem isnt that these people need specific instructions, its that they (for lack of kinder terms) make things harder for themselves, and also that instead of asking someone who can help them in person, they just quit and blame the online recipe. the blame of the online recipe is where the helplessness part comes in

to use the boiled egg ex., most recipes or guides online actually *do* tell you that you need a pot big enough for the amount of eggs, enough water just to cover them, and to set the stove on high until the water boils. there are specific instructions. asking what temperature to set the stove to needs only a follow-up "what temp does water boil" google search to know that water boils at 212F/100C

the point of "learned helplessness" (i do agree the term has become watered down from its actual meaning) is to frustrate the person helping you into just doing it for you, or to convince them youre too incompetent to do it and, again, do it for you

as someone who also genuinely stalls and gets overwhelmed when i dont have a specific process lined out and practiced, there comes a point where you do need to help yourself. ask to be shown specificly in real life how to do something. watch a how-to video if thats not an option. instead of just giving up and deciding not to do it because its scary and new (/not mean)

in conclusion i am not intending any snide tone or sarcasm or meanness or anything so please dont think that i am attacking you or your brother. that post is specifically about people who are unwilling to find a way to do the things they need to do, not people that need help in general

hey, thanks for such a respectful message and adding to the discussion! its really interesting hearing these different perspectives

i guess in the end we dont personally know the people in the screenshots. are they demonstrating learned helplessness? or are they simply venting a frustration that they experience in their day to day lives as a disabled person? i know in the end they chose to post those things online, instead of googling solutions or connecting with other people privately to find solutions, but i guess in the end we dont know who they are, what support networks they have/who they can reach out to, or if they're using the boiling egg as a vague example to demonstrate that some tasks arent as simple as abled people find them! and for the record, i have had my fair share of online recipes that really vaguely say "add a splash of" "use a generous amount of" and other really vague instructions, so i guess its a luck of a draw on what recipe you find haha!

but in the same vain i do see where you're coming from. i think it's important for people to challenge themselves. someone i know also has troubles doing "simple" tasks like boiling an egg, and they explained that they have learned to challenge themselves with these tasks, and overcomign the anxiety of fucking it up. and theyve fucked up a lot trying to heat frozen meals, or making toast, and like, its shit cuz it costs additional money cuz youve burnt the food and can no longer eat it, but if you are able to afford to make those mistakes, then yeah, go for it. especially if theres no financial consequence, i think its really important to self-evaluate, find your threshold, understand yourself and your limits, and push yourself in that compassionate way. like with my ADHD, i definitely dont do the "i have this thing, oh well guess im just doomed to do [symptom] forever". i try to approach it with "maybe i cant do all 10 tasks ive been putting off doing all in one day, but im going to make it a goal to do at least one today" "im going to forget and be overwhelmed, so im going to set 5 different alarms 5 mins after each other to remind me" doing things like that to set yourself up for success.

so in that sense, yeah, i definitely agree that it benefits when people challenge themselves, in ways that are practical. i do admit my brother for example struggles with confidence, but he also has some personality difficulties where he feels the world owes him. he definitely demonstrates learned helplessness in some aspects.

and i think my brain just went on a tangent, because i was mainly getting heated at the comments on the post, wehre people were being downright ableist and shitty. and i think i just see this rhetoric way too much, where when someone genuinely struggles with something, it's generally met with a "haha! how can you find that difficult? thats so easy!" and that always rubs me the wrong way. i interpreted the screenshots as the people talking about finding it difficult to boil an egg as them trying to provide insight into the idea that something seemingly so simple is actually really complex for some people.

but anywaayyy, as i said in the end we dont know who these people are, or their intention, but i personally interpreted them as just being very candid in explaining their struggle. and maybe, yeah, they could learn to take risks and attempt to boil an egg instead of talking about how much they cant do it to the online sphere, but i know i dont know the context, and therefore dont wanna make assumptions

[the-adhd-society]

Hey, I need some advice if you’ve got the time.

My parents are heavily against adhd meds (they want me to do like meditation and stuff) but nothings working. I’m a complete mess at school. I’m riddled with lack of focus and memory problems. My parents are “willing to talk to someone” but I really think that meds might be more helpful or at least worth a shot.

On top of that, I might being getting a job soon. It’s at a video game store I love and I’m really into games, so that’s exciting. Seeing as we know the owners pretty well, it’s highly likely that I’ll get the job. I want this, really badly, but I’m scared that adhd is going to come hit me like a truck.

I turned fourteen two weeks ago.

Many advice on holding retail jobs with adhd and asking for meds?

(I’m also autistic if that changes anything)

Thanks!

Apparently my draft didn't save. That's annoying. Good thing is wrote out my response..

So my answers really depend on why your parents are against the medication. From my experience parents usually are against meds for two ish main reasons..

1) they are uneducated and or are afraid of the stigma: they are afraid of the side effects or the idea that you will be dependent on it for life. Yadda yadda.

In this case i suggest looking up articles on adhd medication and the benefits and common misconceptions that parents have. At 14 you are past the age for major risks ( that i know of...i'm not a doctor) there are TONS of adhd parent groups and resources that you can direct them to so they can see how others have navigated this before.

I would say something along the lines of " hey parental units (mom dad whom ever). I know that we talked about medication before and I heard your concerns so I did some of my own research can I share with you what I found or send you the links ?

The other "camp" or mentality that parents often have is. "It's not really a problem" (denial).

They might say that you are exaggerating, just not trying hard enough, looking for excuses and just aren't trying.

With this one, it's really difficult but it might help to work with them. Or let them think you are working with them. Talk about where you are struggling, talk about the plans that you make to keep organized and where you need help. Talk to them about the best way that they can support you. Showing them that you are "trying" might help them to see that you need more help. Also showing them how much effort and thought you are putting In might help as well.

This could sound like " hey parental, I am trying to meditate like you mentioned. But I can't seems to keep my mind in one place while practicing what do i do ? "

Or " hey I am really struggling with getting all of my assignments done on time. This is what i tried in the past and this is what i am doing now, can you help me find a better way to be successful ? "

You can also just be really upfront and say " i am really struggling with ay and z, i have tried abc but it has not helped. I'm getting really stressed and worried that my grades are going to drop. It is upsetting because i will spend five hours trying to get one assignment done but i seem to get off track. I want to be successful and i know i am capable but i just can't get it all done"

Now i want to say straight up in some cultures and in some households, this type of conversation might be a lot. You might want to look for ppl with adhd from a similar background to see what they did. ( I'm very white and have had many conversations with people about how in their families this is taboo.) .

anyways. I also wanted to let you know that this entire situation is ableism. Just an fyi the fact that you can't get the medical treatment that you need.

I think it is important to talk about medication as a tool to be successful. It's not a cure all and it does have it's draw backs ( price, side effects etc). So don't get your hopes up if you try one drug and it doesn't work well on the first try

The person they are going to talk to do you know how they feel about medication ? Perhaps try and have a conversation with that person beforehand you can say something like. " i know my parents are looking to talk to you about medication, it's something that is really important to me, do you have 5-10 mims where we can talk about it so i can give you my perspective ?"

Obviously you probably might need to ask your parents for permission but just a suggestion. ( if it is someone from school i say go ahead and do it but idk who they are going to talk to).

Moving on to memory things:

I think you need to look at specifically what is the issue that you are having. Are you spending too much time on one assignment so you can't get others done ? Do you forget what is due when ? Do you not leave enough time to do the work so you are stuck cramming ?

Different issues call for different plans. I'd also talk to your case manager or disability person at your school. If you are in the u.s. you should have an IEP or a 504.

With online learning(and in general) you can ask for accommodations such as reducing the work load ( instead of answering 10 questions and writing 4 paragraphs, you do five questions amd two paragraphs)

You can ask for extended time for homework or to not get points off if it is late. There are many different things you can do. The point with homework and assignments is to show comprehension and mastery. If you are able to do that then the other requirements aren't as important. But that is something you amd your parents need to advocate for. And if theu are against bring up that it is just during thr pandemic.

This is what i did organization wise when i was on college.

I went through each of my classes and wrote down in my planner the home work for the entire semester (you might only be able to do it a week at a time) of when they were due ( in pencil).

I wrote down all of then due dates and reminders the week before they were due for larger projects. Then i had a very large desk calendar that i wrote all of my papers and tests on.

Before i would leave class i would write down in pen the homework for next time. (Again second time)

When i would go home i would wrote those assignments on a post it note so i knew what needed to be done for the day(third time). At NO POINT did i ever rely on my memory. I set up clear expectations of what i was going to work one for that day.

find what works for you. Maybe you need a small white board to write down your assignments for the day or week. Maybe you need to write it on a post it note before the end of class. You might need a mix of google calender and post it notes Figure out what works best for and then create a structure around it.

I also used a time app called productivity timer that can help with time blindness and i used another app to lock me out of apps.

In terms of retail. I have no idea friend. Lol.

Let me know if this helps and i would love if any younger people have suggestions.. Or parents. Or literally anyone.

[ckret2]

So a lot of care goes into your writing (I assume) and it seems like you do a lot of research. I was wondering how you conduct your research, what kind of sites you look for, how you narrow done what your looking for, etc, if you wouldn’t mind sharing?

It honestly depends on what I’m looking for! Like, I work better when I have specific examples, so I’m gonna ramble to you about one thing I looked up today:

When Ghidorah hooked up to a radio station, I wanted it to be an actual real world radio station so that I could listen to the station online and go “yeah, here are the songs they’re listening to.” Because that’s a lot better than me, whose sum total of Spanish knowledge comes from a couple years of very spotty Duolingo practice, trying to guess what kind of songs play on actual Mexican radio stations.

Based on prior research I already knew that the fictional Isla de Mara is basically straight out east from the Rio Grande, next to the state Tamaulipas, so I got on Google Maps, scrolled around to where the Grande dumps into the Gulf, and looked for the city nearest the coast that looked sizable enough to have a radio station (i.e., the one closest to the coast that has a big name). And that ended up being Matamoros:

Here’s a pro tip: if you’re trying to find info about something in a non-English-speaking country, you’re probably going to find a lot more reliable resources a lot more easily if you actually google for that info in the language that’s spoken in that country. If you don’t know the language, Google Translate it. When you find the page you want, Google Translate it back. Yes, you’re gonna lose some nuance and some of the translations will be wonky, but it’ll still probably give you better info than if you’re googling for English pages about something in, like, Indonesia or wherever.

(Can you tell Indonesia is also on the list of places I’ve been researching! Do y’all wanna read the best myth I’ve ever read in my life? It features a snake named Stupid Boy and a misunderstanding worthy of an Abbott & Costello skit. I love it and I’ve only read a Wikipedia summary of it. And a Google Translated version of the Indonesian Wikipedia version of the story, which is 20% wilder. This has absolutely nothing to do with what I was trying to research.)

So I plugged “radio station” into Google Translate, got the Spanish, googled “estaciones de radio matamoros tamaulipas,” and clicked on the very first result because it’s a streaming site, and look at the options. All the FM stations are out. All the AM stations that don’t have genres listed, I’m pushing to the bottom of the list because I don’t wanna listen to each individual one trying to find out if they actually play music or not. The station that gives its genre as “noticias” I ignore because I’m not here for news, I’m here for music. There are two stations that have “balada/grupera/mexicano/ranchera” listed for their genres, and these I do know are music genres due to Prior Research, because yes I had to do research to find that out because I don’t know crap about Mexican music genres but I’m sure gonna learn.

And also while I’m at it I look up “balada” and “grupera” on wikipedia because I don’t know what those genres are, and now I know that “balada” is just Latin ballad, and more significantly I know from one single line on Wikipedia that balada is partially distinguishable from the bolero genre it spawned from because ballads usually have more direct straightforward romantic lyrics whereas boleros are generally more subtle/metaphorical, which, okay! What am I going to do with this information? I don’t know! Possibly nothing! But because I read the Wikipedia page it’s now a fact that lives inside my head! Ballads are straightforward about the romance! That’s a distinguishing feature!

There’s pro tip #2 on research: when there’s a subject you need to know, seriously, just go to wikipedia and read up on it and start clicking on all the links on the page you’re on and absorb the knowledge. You might use none of it, or it might end up super important. The fic Mafic exists because when I was writing Gold Gilt on Molten Basalt Ghidorah licked Rodan and I needed to know what he’d taste like, so I looked up igneous rocks to find out what minerals are in them, and “feldspar” was on the list, so I said he tasted like feldspar, and then I kept reading the page and found out there was a difference between intrusive and extrusive igneous rock, with “extrusive” meaning the rock formed on the surface rather than inside/under the volcano, and it said “basalt” is common extrusive rock, and well okay then obviously any rock that makes up Rodan’s hide is going to be extrusive, and “basalt” is a word which I have heard before which means readers have probably heard it before, so bam now he’s made out of basalt. … And then doing more research on volcanoes in subsequent weeks I find out that basalt is a common extrusive igneous rock from volcanoes with mafic lava, which are typically short dome-shaped volcanoes that ooze rather than tall pointy volcanoes that go boom, but Rodan’s volcano is definitely tall and pointy and goes boom, and whoops I hecked up. And now because I looked up mafic and felsic volcanoes, I made up a whole-ass goddamn set of Rodan subspecies, and my worldbuilding is richer for it, even though mafic & felsic lava wasn’t relevant to the info I was looking for when I found it out. And these are things learned gradually, over several weeks of looking up one tiny volcano detail for Rodan at a time and then reading three more Wikipedia pages in the process. Do I understand 70% of what I read? I sure don’t, because I’m neither a chemist nor a geologist. Do I make use of the 30% I do understand? I sure do! And that makes it worth it.

So back to the radio.

So there are two radio stations on this site that play music, so I click on the first one. And what do you know, I get a radio stream and it’s playing music! That’s it research done I got what I’m looking for. I bookmark the station and listen to it from time to time to like, absorb the sound, so that I can describe it in fic when I need to. (Admittedly, when I finally did describe it in fic it was “confusing noise???” because I was writing from the perspective of a couple creatures that have never heard human music before—but as they adjust to the sound any descriptions of it will, like, reflect what it actually sounds like.)

So that was a week or two ago. Today, I’m trying to write a fic where actual humans are hearing that same radio station, which means they can probably like, actually understand what songs are playing. So I listen to the station and try to pick out lyrics to google so I can find out the titles of the songs. (I am told by Google Translate that the Spanish word for lyrics is “letra,” but I seem to get about the same results whether my search term is “lyrics” or “letra.”) But the thing is, I suck at picking out lyrics in English, which I actually speak, and duolingo does not prepare you for the challenge of picking out individual words from balada as they’re singing and you’re trying to parse two words inside your head when the next three words come and you forget the first two words and then you forget the whole phrase and fifteen seconds have gone by and the only word you picked out was “mañana” and that’s not enough lyrics to google. So I recorded 20-odd minutes of the station so that I could listen to the same lines over and over until I picked out a few words well enough to google. And I’ve now picked out… two lyrics that let me identify two songs! 

Pro tip #3: research is slow sometimes.

pro tip #4: if you’re trying to decipher spanish lyrics from a live radio station maybe like ask if any of your friends know more spanish than you and don’t have anything better to do with their evening than help you google lyrics.

So uh the tl;dr is research is a lot of Google and a lot of Wikipedia. If I was writing, like, an actual novel or something that I planned on publishing or putting before an audience bigger than… *checks notes on fics* a hundred people, then it would also be a lot of books and a lot of finding people from the actual cultures I’m trying to write about to ask them about whatever subject I’m writing about; but eventually you’ve gotta balance out the effort vs the rewards, and hauling ass to the library to spend five days doing research for a fic I’m gonna write in two hours and post the night I wrote it is a time sink that my ADHD and I lack the coordination and attention span to manage.

But hey here’s my last pro tip: assume you don’t know things, unless you know that you already know them. Like, if you’re going to drop a fish in a volcano, you probably assume that you know what that smoke is going to look like, because, generally, you know what smoke looks like, don’t you? But unless you’ve already seen a fish fall in a volcano, don’t assume that. Assume that you don’t know what the smoke of a lava-cooked fish looks like. Look it up. If you can’t find a result, look up a fish in a fire instead because that’s the next closest thing. Some smoke is whitish and some is black and if you want to describe that smoke you’ve gotta have seen it to know which it’s gonna be.

And here’s where “assume nothing” gets really important: if you’re gonna have a giant pteranodon make glass in his volcano, you’re probably going to assume that the volcano will be hot enough to actually melt the glass, because volcanoes are literally so hot they melt rocks. So it’s def hot enough for glass, right? Don’t assume that. Look it up. When you do you’ll find out that lava is actually approximately 500°C too cool to melt sand into glass. You’ll also find out that lava is too cool to melt the very rocks that go into lava, and you’ll spend four hours obsessively googling lava to find out how the hell magma is formed if it’s not actually hot enough to be liquid. (The answer: water mixed with the rocks lowers the melting point; and the drop in the extreme pressure when rocks move upward in the mantle also lowers the melting point; until the melting point is reduced to the actual temperature of the rock. I found this out while trying to write about a pteranodon making glass.)

And that’s it that’s how I do research. To answer your specific questions: I don’t concern myself with “what kind of sites” I look for because the sites that I’m gonna look at are the first results that pop up when I google a question, and if the first results don’t have the answer, then I click on the next results, and the next results, until I find the site that’s got it. I don’t “narrow down” what I’m looking for—if anything, what I do is the exact opposite of “narrowing down” what I’m looking for, I start with one question and then I broaden it to read about a half dozen tangentially-related concepts because that tangential info will probably be useful and I won’t know that until it’s in my brain percolating. If you want to know One Specific Fact and you look up that One Specific Fact and immediately leave, then you fail to learn the Fifteen Related Facts that are super important to the overall topic you’re writing about but that you never knew to ask about because you were only looking for that One Specific Fact.

Feel free to ask for clarification. I went stream-of-consciousness as hell on this ask.