#so while it worked for the executive functioning part of adhd it also made my heart rate super high and kinda gave me way too much energy

[coloursofaparadox]

brain is doing...a thing? meds are.....good?

[fourthclone]

alrighty, i’ll be hopping back and forth between here and @infog starting this week. sorry it’s taken me so long. it’s. been an appointment after the other and suffice it to say I have been. digesting and processing a lot of what i’ve been learning about myself and i am still kind of in the process of that but i think i am ready to start moving on now little by little when the weather allows me to be here because it has been crazy hot.

some news for you guys… a lot of my life is making sense to me now. and i can start building strategies and being kinder to myself now.

i was already diagnosed with adhd, but i have discovered i am also on the autism spectrum and i have also recently been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. so all of my instability and the strangeness and distance i constantly feel when interacting with others makes a lot of sense to me now. my rapidly shifting energy and mood? that makes sense to me now too. for a long time i could not help but feel as there was something else i was missing bc my adhd meds were not working. i was still having horrible cyclical mood changes, horrible sleep overall, and my recent depression episode that made me so convinced that people fucking hated me here is proof of my recent diagnosis.

as for my autism, while i am not officially diagnosed ( it is impossible to get an adult diagnosis where i live unless you are a child ), i know for a fact i am on the spectrum based on certain symptoms i have observed since childhood. suddenly, me having no friends in elementary and like maybe ONE total in middle school makes sense. it would also explain my constant frustration with loving routine and having a very long standing special interest and feeling safe in the familiar and structured tasks and organizing BUT having another part of my brain that struggles with executive function, memory, focus, and overall organization, plus amping up my sensitivity to stimuli has caused even MORE stress and frustration.

with all of this going on, it is no wonder i am chronically exhausted all the time. life is exhausting. i am never truly truly happy, most of the time i feel like i’m faking it. the good news is that i am now medicated for Bipolar, and with all hopes in time i will go from rapid cycling to more of a stable baseline… bc yes, my ADHD meds have unfortunately caused me to rapid cycle.

but that’s the update on moogle’s life for now! to those of you still here, ty for waiting for me!

[poisedpen]

✒ Planning...for the Neurodivergent!

I think that for most people the term "planning" conjures pictures of perfectly executed layouts and neat, tidy handwriting. While these things are certainly impressive, sometimes it feels like it prioritizes style over function. Journaling, and by extension, planning, does NOT have to be expensive, time consuming, or perfect.

When I first started dipping my toes into the community a few years ago, I got probably two weeks into a proper “bullet journal” before I gave up. My ink smudged, my stickers peeled, and I found that spending hours making the perfect layout was sucking away my limited time.

As a newly diagnosed and treated ADHD-er, I have found some success in a printed planner. All the months, weeks, and days are already laid out for me, and I have the time at work to fill out everything I need.

But what about someone who doesn’t have the luxury of down time at work? What about someone who gets overwhelmed just THINKING about all of the long-term projects and obligations they have on a day-to-day basis? A chronic procrastinator? Someone whose phone’s to-do list is just BURSTING with tasks, but there’s no prioritization?

Introducing…the pocket notebook!

The main objective of this is to find a pocket notebook that is portable, slim, and enjoyable to write on. Field Notes are quite popular among the stationery crowd, but they’re also on the pricey side for only 48 pages. If you have the money and you enjoy them, go for it! But there could very well be something just as perfect for you waiting at the dollar store.

Yeah, it’s small, and therefore may not be the most comfortable thing to write in. However, it’s not truly meant to be a full-blown journal. No– instead of shoving it into an endless to-do list or note on your phone…you are making your idea tangible.

Your phone, and by extension all of its notifications and applications and features, is designed to distract you. By removing all of that and placing a simple, analog tool in front of you…it is, in theory, easier to focus on what matters.

Think of a cool story idea at work? Jot it down. Remember something you need to do on the way home? Birthdays? Events? Goals? Jot it down. There are no rules. If it's important to you, keep it.

The pocket notebook isn’t really intended to be a super-organized or coherent space for your thoughts. It’s a catch-all for things that might slip your mind later. Then, when you get a chance to rest at the end of your day, you can look back and transfer that idea to something a little more organized. This can be a more structured planner, a journal, a story document, a discord chat, etc.

But hey…maybe that’s still not your cup of tea. You don’t have the time to sit down and reflect on your day. You don’t want to have to organize everything into neat little boxes. It’s just a concept at this point, but…I might have something for you.

✒ MY PSEUDO-PLANNER METHOD

This is in part adapted from other methods I’ve seen people use, but specifically made with my partner’s struggles in mind. He has been using his phone’s default to-do list to write down tasks, but by doing so other things get pushed to the bottom. There’s no real way to “prioritize” them, and after years of using this system there were simply so many that he didn’t know where to start.

So, after a little bit of nudging, I had my partner write down every single thing in his phone’s notes and to-do list in the front of his pocket notebook. Since he struggles with prioritization, I went ahead and did the following steps for him. (If you struggle with this and have a friend, partner, or family member willing to do the same thing, definitely use them as a resource!)

✒ STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS

I chose three things my partner NEEDED to get done before a certain deadline (In this case, seeing his parents for Thanksgiving).

I transferred them to a clean page and wrote the due date at the top.

I crossed those tasks off of the task masterlist.

I “sealed” his task masterlist with a piece of washi tape (masking/painters tape also works great!)

I left space at the bottom of the page for additional notes he may think of throughout the week.

For many neurodivergent people, seeing a HUGE LIST OF THINGS YOU NEED TO DO is the single most discouraging thing ever. By removing the list of things from normal view, I’m relying on the theory of “out of sight, out of mind”. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t still get those things done! It’s more about tricking your brain into only thinking about the most important things you have to do in that time period. And then...getting the satisfaction of crossing them out once they're complete.

I have actually been using a method quite similar to this for my full planner. I tape folded half-pages full of long term goals, purchases, and other lists to my monthly page so that I can go back and reference them when I feel up for a new task. By keeping them hidden from my regular view it helps me feel less anxious about ALL THE THINGS I WANT TO ACHIEVE and I can instead focus on the short-term necessities.

(Please excuse my mess...I'm moving into a Hobonichi Cousin for 2024, and figuring out my process in this cheap planner in the meantime!)

✒ OTHER TIPS

Pick a notebook you like! Paper smoothness, paper thickness, size, lined, dotted, gridded, etc.

Use a writing utensil you enjoy! Rollerball, fountain pen, sharpies, pencil, whatever!

Think of it as a sensory experience when it comes to the above. If you enjoy the act of it, you’re more likely to do it!

If you are able to carry around two differently-colored pens, use one to underline/add contrast for readability.

Use a paperclip to keep your place.

If you have it available, use sticky notes for tentative plans that aren’t set in stone yet.

You ARE allowed to tear pages out, cut them, modify the cover, etc. NO RULES! It's your spce.

You can prevent bleedthrough to other pages by keeping a thin, paper-sized object behind your page. (Like shitajiki/pencil boards)

✒ CONCLUSION

The main point behind EVERYTHING I’ve written here is that digital tools aren’t for everyone. Notion, Obsidian, Trello, etc. are great resources, and there are many people who have great success when using them. However, I am sure there are many other people like my partner and I who have developed a kind of “clutter blindness” to things that aren’t immediately in front of them.

You aren’t stupid for needing things broken down into exact, detailed steps. You aren’t inherently irresponsible because you miss deadlines or misplace important information. You need accessibility. The world may not be built for people like us, but there are so many ways you can learn to help yourself achieve your goals

(Please feel free to add your ideas and modifications to this post! I'd love to see what your methods are-- perhaps they might help me, as well!)

[drtanner]

I'm feeling directionless today and it's resulting in me sitting here with my thoughts and getting rankled about Numerous things, but mostly about how bullshit it is to hear how other people in enviable positions got to where they are and how fucking isolated I am from anyone who could meaningfully help me achieve anything. There's that quote, something about being less interested in the weight and convulsions of Einstein's brain than the certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweat shops; I think about that quote just about every fucking day, and I especially think about it, and think about it bitterly, when I hear about someone who got to where they are by knowing someone in the industry they got into, or getting lucky by being in the right place at the right time, or having the freedom to try something that might not work.

(tl;dr - Yes, this is about the monster dating sim, again, but also it's really not. I've been pissed about this stuff for A While.)

The more I sit here and have ideas for this video game that will never get made, because I certainly can't make it by myself but it's either by myself or not at all, the more irritated and resentful I get at having been railroaded into mediocrity. Where were my big opportunities in my youth? The people I was supposed to connect with and get a leg up from when I was older? All I was ever told when I was growing up was that I should work hard at school, get good grades and ensure myself a sensible job that paid well, and to never dare dream of doing anything else. Now I'm a few years shy of being 40 and I'm fucking nothing, and frustratingly isolated from anyone who could actually help me execute any of the ideas I've been having. I could have all the good ideas in the world and it wouldn't mean shit.

For someone who grew up being told that my being "bright" would automatically assure me greatness as long as I never let that inherent trait of brightness be compromised by mistakes or failure, I sure did end up going fucking nowhere.

"Oh Tanner, just learn to code! You can find everything you need to learn to code for free online! It's easy, you can just make your game by yourself!" Yeah, maybe if the fucking ADHD meds had worked for more than a fucking day. I have a disability that affects my focus and memory, I am not learning how to do jack or shit, no matter how much I might want to. Just the thought of sitting down and coding something sets my brain shrieking like a distressed toddler and I think it might actually kill me to try, and that's before we get into how much art would be necessary to make this fucking thing. I work so fucking slowly, it would take me a fucking lifetime to make enough art for even the simplest dating sim. It is not fucking feasible.

I know what needs to be coded! I've spent the last few weeks coming up with Systems and ways to make things work beyond the basic functionality of a bog standard dating sim that I know wouldn't be difficult to code for someone who knows how! I know what art needs to be made! I just can't fucking do it myself, and once again I am left to wonder how, exactly, one becomes an Eccentric Auteur™ who just has the ideas and doles them out to a team of vastly more practical people who turn them into real things. One assumes that you have to have money to get started doing that, which I, a disabled old queer, most certainly do not.

It's going to be by myself or not at all, so I guess it's going to be not at all. Life's not a bed of roses, is it.

NB: Pre-emptively, I know that there are game engines that one can use to make dating sims easily. They are not going to be sufficient for the shit that I've been throwing into this game's google doc for the last few weeks. Believe me when I say that I'm more upset about this than you are.

Also, if you try to suggest that I should use AI to help me with any part of this, I'm going to walk to your house and smash your fucking kneecaps with a brick. I should not have to explain why.

[uncloseted]

I have ADHD and I also get really annoyed when people on the internet claim people are faking their ADHD. I've even seen people claim that it isn't real and people shouldn't take medication for it. The people saying these things seem to have extremely limited knowledge on ADHD. As someone who didn't get diagnosed until I was 21 this rhetoric concerns me. Not being diagnosed/medicated for so long made life so much harder and I would hate to see others not get the help they need

I think it's just a super complicated issue and the internet doesn't like nuance. Certainly, ADHD does exist- it's a neurodevelopmental disorder that has a huge impact on people's lives and well-being. And stimulant medications are the most effective treatment for people with ADHD- people with ADHD do really need their medication to be able to function. But it's also true that stimulant medications are not one-size-fits-all, and some people with ADHD don't respond well to them. It's important that people find a medication that works for them, not the one that "should" work because it works for other people.

And it's also true that some people online are incorrectly self-diagnosing themselves as having ADHD because they've noticed executive functioning issues in themselves and can't or don't want to see a medical professional about it. It's also true that there's a lot of misinformation online that leads people to incorrectly come to the conclusion that they have ADHD. That's a problem because it means those people aren't getting the treatment that they need; they're just getting an excuse they can give other people.

It's true that ADHD appears to be underdiagnosed in girls and in underprivileged communities, and it's good that people in those populations are starting to recognize they may have ADHD. But it's also true that ADHD appears to be overdiagnosed among boys in well-off communities. That's a problem because, in some communities, normal childhood behavior is being pathologized and treated as "a problem".

It's true that ADHD medication can reduce the rates of substance use disorder in people with ADHD, and so it's important that people with ADHD do find a medication that works for them. But it's also true that people without ADHD abuse ADHD medications as a party drug or a study drug, and that some people without ADHD do become addicted to stimulant medications. That's a problem, because while ADHD medication does increase life span in people with ADHD, taking it in recreational doses can lead to serious medical issues. Even in people with ADHD, ADHD medications can, rarely, cause medical complications. But it's also true that we live in a capitalist system that obligates us to work without rest, so it makes sense that some people without ADHD would want- or feel like they desperately need- that extra edge just to be able to survive, regardless of the potential long term consequences to their health.

It's true that the diagnostic process for ADHD is imprecise and complicated. It's true that getting a prescription filled for ADHD medication is currently far more complicated than any person with ADHD can actually navigate, so it needs to become easier. But it's also true that people do try to game that diagnostic process and that certain online telehealth platforms have intentionally overdiagnosed ADHD and overprescribed ADHD medications, which has, in part, caused the shortage of ADHD medications that we're in now.

I guess what I'm getting at is yes, absolutely, I want to see other people get the help that they need. I know how much getting a diagnosis and receiving treatment has changed my life, and I want that for everyone else who's struggling. But it's not so cut and dry as that. There are a lot of legitimate concerns about how ADHD gets diagnosed, treated, and how we view it culturally, and ignoring those issues isn't going to help anyone in the long run. People need to start looking at ADHD policy in an evidence-based way and to start making decisions accordingly, but that's really difficult when nuance gets drowned out.

[copperbadge]

I know I said I wasn’t yet replying to comments/reblogs about the ADHD thing but I do have one I have to share because it made me lol. 

ambersnake

Oh wow, you were Perceived.

My health insurance paid like $1000 for me to undergo the mortifying ordeal of being known! 

Anyway, now you all too can Perceive me: there’s a full writeup of the preliminary feedback below, as the formal evaluation I’ll get in print, but not for a few weeks. It’s not only so that you guys can enjoy a peek inside my brain (or...recoil in horror, this is an option, it's what I'm doing) but also so I can find this again if need be, because if I don’t have it written out in plain language I will forget the highlights. 

The ultimate diagnosis from the feedback session was ADHD, Inattentive, Mild, with anxiety as an exacerbating factor. This feels in many ways like it's a diagnosis of something that’s not a "real" problem but I believe that's a pretty common reaction and I know it to be false, so I'll work through it. 

I scored "superior" on a lot of skills, but with an anomalous split where a handful of key skills were "average". The evaluator suspects that higher-level skills may actually be pulling below-average skills upwards, making the gap even more pronounced. The most important low scores from a diagnosis standpoint were executive functioning and sustained attention. 

I also scored high on impulsivity, but the evaluator didn't consider that an issue because I didn't self-report any problems arising from it (substance misuse, poor self-control, physical fidgeting, etc). I agree on this, I don’t think it’s a problem. 

So the major issue is inattention, exacerbated by anxiety, which is where things start to swerve wildly. Something in the testing indicated that I am in a "distressing" amount of anxiety, and exhaustion from the stress is increasing my inability to focus; increased stress from the pandemic is likely what’s affecting me so badly now. 

The anxiety is the bewildering part for me. Yes, of course I feel anxious sometimes and the pandemic has raised that anxiety, but that's true of everyone. I don't feel distressed, but I don't know what distressing levels of anxiety are meant to feel like. I don't think the evaluation is wrong, necessarily, I just don't know how to correlate her conclusions with my lived experience. 

I do wonder if the confusion is because of her other observation, which is that my self image is at odds with my presentation. I was evaluated as having a negative self-perception involving self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy while actually being extremely intelligent and charismatic. That's lovely to hear (at least in part). I must have made a good impression. But it's not especially helpful in terms of fixing the problem. Also it makes me feel a little bit like a television antihero. All that and I don't even get to have sexual tension with an unimaginative but stoic sidekick? I feel cheated.

My favorite part of the entire discussion was when she said, "You really blame yourself for your failures," to which I amusedly replied, "Well, they're mine, I'm not sure who else I'm meant to blame for them," and then we both winced. 

She also asked me if I felt like I was socially isolated and I thought to myself "How...does one even answer that question in year three of a pandemic" so I just said "No" because what the fuck, and then overexplained all my groupchats. 

One strong suggestion was therapy focused on increasing confidence in social interaction. I do not (she was very careful to say) have social anxiety but rather focus a significant amount of my anxiety around social situations. She thinks it would be great if I socialized more and brought a friend with me to honestly evaluate my performance, which sounds like what will happen if there is a Hell and I go there, so that's not really viable. As an alternative to therapy, because I think she could see my mounting horror at the idea, she suggested an executive functioning coach, which I didn't know was a thing. 

She said that she's not in favor of medication if any other alternative will work, and doesn't believe I need to be medicated; she recommended developing behavioral systems instead. I'm not sure I agree, but it's moot since she's not going to be in charge of my treatment (she is in fact leaving the clinic where she tested me, Friday was her last day, so my formal eval will be written by someone else). I've made an appointment in June with a psychiatrist who specializes in adult ADHD and anxiety, so he'll be a second set of eyes. And thank you to everyone who recommended a psychiatrist in place of a therapist, I didn't know that was an option. 

Anyway, the ADHD diagnosis itself didn't throw me for a total loop, although I did truly expect I wouldn't get one. The rest of it is much more difficult to deal with but a huge part of that is that I wasn't expecting to be evaluated for any kind of emotional dysregulation. It's fucking me up that either it's so obvious they had to include it, or they were secretly testing for it and I somehow "failed" the secret Being Normal test. Intellectually I understand that a) normal is a useless construct and b) it doesn't matter anyway because my life isn't actually falling apart around my ears and even if it was I'm getting help for that, but internalizing that takes time.

They fucked up a perfectly good novelist is what they did. Look at him, now he knows he’s got anxiety. 

[tfw-adhd]

So I don’t have ADHD, but my ex did. We were together for about 1.5 years. Initially, when I was in the relationship, it didn’t seem like it was something that heavily affected his life. He was diagnosed at a young age, went to therapy, and has meds. It wasn’t something we really talked about and I only ever remembered he had ADHD when we were studying and he brought up his meds. Other than that, it was never brought it up in conversation so I will be honest and say I did not know much about how he thought and functioned. Now, in hindsight, I’m thinking it affected our relationship more than I or even he expected. There were often times I felt forgotten, he couldn’t properly make plans even though I would remind him, he often became infatuated with new people, it seemed like when I talked to about something really important, he would forget about it the next day and he said a lot of things that just feel like lies now. He ended up cheating on me, and I’m aware ADHD does not mean they are more prone to cheating but I’ve been trying to make sense of it cause he never seemed like the type. All I can think of is how you said they seek stimulation. Truthfully, I have been having difficulty believing I wasn’t anything more than some hyperfixation or someone he used for his own satisfaction. I apologize if this explanation sounds offensive as that was not my intention. I suppose my question would be, how does ADHD affect relationships? And is there any way to support someone with ADHD in a relationship? I just want to understand. I think I wasn’t the best partner either.

ADHD can affect relationships in... basically all the ways you just said.

They can be very hard for us to maintain because they can start as the result of a hyperfixation on a certain person. And hyperfixations fade over time, even when we really don't want them to. Even if the relationship doesn't start with a hyperfixation, we'll eventually hyperfixate on other things - this means that the other person can feel forgotten about or pushed to the side, because although we can't help it, only one thing or one person is giving us dopamine for however long it lasts.

New things are exciting and give us that dopamine rush, so chances are that whether or not a new relationship is a hyperfixation, we'll start to pull away after a few weeks, and won't be quite as full-on. Because the relationship is a part of our lives, now, so it isn't exciting and new anymore.

Our social skills also aren't always great, and we're rejection sensitive - we take things a lot harder than other people do. So if we ask someone if they want to go on a date and they say they're busy, we can start convincing ourselves that they've lost interest in us.

This might sound horrible, but we're the embodiment of the 'out of sight, out of mind' phrase, and... if we haven't spoken to you in a little while, we forget you exist. Not in a horrible way, just... we won't think to message you ourselves, or to make plans. We might accidentally ignore you because we don't... feel time passing in the same way that Neurotypicals do, and we just don't realise that it's been a few days since we last spoke.

We can be impulsive, and in my experience, that can get on Neurotypical people's nerves, especially when they're spending a lot of time around us.

Because of our executive dysfunction, we can be messy and have trouble with our own hygiene (in terms of brushing our teeth or showering regularly), and that can really get on people's nerves, too.

We have trouble with our working memory, which means that we can forget important dates (like anniversaries, or valentine's day) or forget about plans that we've made.

Honestly, I don't know of any ways to support us. For remembering dates, it can be useful to put them in a shared calendar on your phones. Engaging us in our hyperfixations and letting us talk about them to you can make us feel very loved - people rarely seem to do this.

[draconym]

would you consider an asexual spectrum bird? as an aegosexual individual, I don’t feel fully represented by the plain asexual flag (tho there‘s nothin wrong with it!) and i’d love to see an aspec bird, as well as a queer platonic bird! ofc i understand if you don’t want to or can’t find a bird to match!

much love, El <3

Yes! Absolutely! I'm open to doing a lot more birds. And I like the requests! (As someone who doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to The Discourse, I have learned a lot of new terms through pride bird requests.) But there is kind of a process to adding a new bird that can take a while:

1. Is there a flag that's commonly used and recognizable?

I've gotten a bunch of requests for microlabel birds, and often times I can't find a flag that community has created. I think this is an a-spec flag I've seen before? I'm not sure. It's a great flag, and I love branching out from the "Lots Of Horizontal Bars" look.

But it's often difficult to figure out if there's a consensus on which flag people prefer. A lot of these flags are very new!! And that's not a bad thing. I love that so many of us want to follow in Gilbert Baker's footsteps and create flags for our community. But, uh ... here are the image search results for "a-spec flag:"

It can be kind of hard to know where to start sometimes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. Can I find a bird with the same colors of that flag?

Can I be brutally honest for a second? I think a lot of our flags have too many colors. And a lot of those colors are highly specific down to the hex code. I know I'm a boring person with bad opinions regarding this but I can't help but be influenced by more traditional vexillology and heraldic convention: I think three colors is enough for most flags and five is too many, and I also think we have enough horizontal bars and we should start considering other geometric shapes.

Nature has made a lot of different birds but there are, unfortunately, a finite number of birds and an nearly-infinite number of possible flag color combinations. And we keep putting purple on all our flags when there just aren't that many purple birds. What I'm trying to say is: maybe we should start choosing flag color palettes based on existing birds, because that would make this project easier for me. :P

3. When can I find time to draw this bird?

I work three part time jobs and I have ADHD so my executive function is, maybe, not excellent. I, too, wish it did not take me months to draw new birds.

Please don't let my rant and vexillogical snobbery deter you from requesting a pride bird. I'm just saying, I know it's taken me a long time to make these, but it's not cause I don't enjoy making them. I've got a list of other birds I do want to get to (intersex, demiboy, demigirl) and I'm always adding to it.

[starry-skies-116]

Greetings, I've another thing to report!

Oh golly, an update!

Literally just tried bringing this up with my mom about how my memory lapses made me ghost an IRL friend by complete accident- he had texted me, and I literally SWORE I texted him back, but oh, turns out I didn’t! Yet another ‘glitch in the matrix’ type situation!

Guess what she said in response to such a humiliating moment?: ‘You’re not supposed to text your friends when they’re probably studying. Also, everyone forgets things sometimes, it’s fine.’

Really, Mumma? Seriously? Is that the absolute best you can do? Appreciate the attempt to help, but it was still a poor attempt!

I’m doing relatively fine now, but my anxiety still tells me that my memory lapses and low-executive functioning, as well as my lack of task and time management and dismal organization skills are literally going to ruin my life later down the line. A few years before it was absolutely terrible- I was in a situation where I couldn’t remember what I said or did just moments ago. I was constantly understimulated, depressed, having absolute meltdowns not knowing what in the entire universe was ‘wrong’ with me.

Every single day I was near-catatonic to the point where my body was on autopilot, feeling like a failure- that I would never be enough because simple things that other people did so easily were so hard for me. It got to the point where I didn’t even want to get out of bed some days.

And people dismissed it as me being the ‘wierd lazy and forgetful kid’ or ‘not pulling myself together’.

I’m much better now, again- I sort of have my act together for the most part, but I’m just scared my symptoms are going to be exacerbated, since I’m off my meds (have been for a long time) and I’m going into junior year of High School. My parents believe I don’t require medication or therapy for my condition anymore, since ‘it goes away when you’re 14’. Disclaimer, though- I get that medication and therapy is incredibly expensive, and most psychologists and doctors don’t offer effective treatment for ADHD at all- mine sure as hell doesn’t, she holds me to neurotypical standards and advises me to use planners when I’ve clearly told both her and my parents that I’ve tried that multiple times and it doesn’t work. Every damn time.

I’ve been self-managing my symptoms and masking for quite a while, but I’m so genuinely terrified it’ll all backfire and that ADHD will ruin my life, my relationships, my health, my education and me once more.

Not to mention that I’m going to be taking the SAT soon.

Even despite just an educational IEP to support me, I don’t want everything to shatter and crumble to ashes again. I don’t want my mental state to deteriorate so horribly and so exponentially quickly after I worked so hard, pouring my blood, sweat and tears into the effort to improve upon myself.

I’m probably going to have nightmares about this nonsense. Immediate aid is not required as of now, but still. Help me.

[that-tall-queer-bassist]

My personal Pros and Cons of my ADHD

Pros

-noticing all the little details and appreciating them in the fullest

-Emotional Dysregulation, because when I get a new plant, or find that one oddly shaped metal marble I lost a while ago, I am so excited it’s pathetic, but I love that feeling of pure joy.

-hyperfixation of the week/day/hour (i know some people describe it differently, let me be pls) . I usually switch between art mediums, and/or a few video games/social media sites. for example, I’ve been on tumblr for 3 hours as i write this, after not touching it for, i think a month?

-nuerodivergent friends. They’re just better.

-the ability to completely drown myself in information to ignore reality. Is it healthy? no. But i simply cannot handle another existiential crissi rn, so i will instead play minecraft while listening to alt rock playlists on youtube because getting spotify sounds like a lot of work.

-my ability to retain absolutely useless information, from either my, or my other nuerodivergent friends hyperfixations/special interests. I can explain to you in terrible formatting if it’s out loud, the evolution, history, training, anatomy and roles of the horse in our world, and how ao3 works, and what makes or breaks a fanfiction.

-Object Impermanence. When i literally hide myself a treat or surprise and forget about it, then get so excited when i do find/discover it again. I hide google questions, and/or song lyrics in my tabs :) its so fun. Also, hiding away stressors. Again, healthy? no, but i don’t feel like having anxiety all day, so whatever.

-Emotional Dysregulation, again. I can switch from sad or angry to happy and excited/content in a few seconds. It’s also great for getting my siblings out of their funk. ex., my sister is mad at me. I make a silly voice repeating what she said or cross my eyes at her. she laughs, then we can talk and have constructive conversation about why she shouldn’t get that upset about me “cutting off her reading time” when we share a room and I want to sleep, and know that she will be very tired tomorrow if she doesn’t also go to sleep. (We have this conversation almost every single night, i’m not even joking)

Cons

-Emotional Dysregulation. When i get upset, I’m Upset. Like, big time, ruining friendships and familial ties if i let it get out of hand, Upset. Yeah.

-Time Blindness. Constantly late, or early, or under or over estimating the amount of time it takes to do a thing, not eating til 4 because you forgot but you also should just wait til dinner, but now its 9 and I still haven’t eaten-

-Executive Dysfunction. I can’t do the things needed to function. Don’t have the mental energy to explain this one, so google it i guess? There’s a whole checklist of things you need to be able to do to function, and i can do like, three on a good day.

-Sleeping Trouble. People with adhd have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking up. So, sleeping trouble. So I’m constantly tired.

-Internal Clock is SLIGHTLY OFF. Nuerotypicals have that normal sleep schedule. Adhd ers have it shifted forward by, i think, 2, 3 hours. So we go to sleep later, and wake up later, and that’s the only way to get a healthy amount of sleep. My entire family also eats dinner super late, which might be because we’re weird, but I suspect the inner clock thing cuz we all got adhd.

-Object Impermanance. I hid my math homework one time. I failed that class. 

-Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Never trying, or starting cuz I’m so terrified to get a bad reaction. Constantly masking around certain people to appeal to the few of my Nuerotypical friends. Or, y’know, majority of my extended family. They’re ableist. and homophobic. And transphobic. And racist. and sexist. The list goes on, but, yeah. Never coming out to them! :D

-Masking. It’s exhausting and I can only handle so much of it.

-Not Masking around nuerotypicals. The shoot down after finally revealing my true thoughts, urges, feelings, stims, etc. just sucks. Super disheartening. 

-Squirrel or shiny jokes when they’re made by people without adhd. Yes, I do get distracted by squirrels, and shiny things, and dice. Stop pointing it out, and/or putting me into yet another box of your labeling. 

-saying that I’m lazy, worthless, or a disaster when really it’s not helping. I already have that internal monologue, you adding to it and giving it some truth/extra ammunition is not. helping.

-Emotional Dysregulation. Again, because mood swings. like, I’m trying to be rightfully angry with you. Stop making me laugh with you’re silly faces or pointing out of a weird face someone made in a picture you took. 

-the stigma about the hyperactive subtype. I’m inattentive. I have No Energy. Ever. Sometimes i have restlessness, but there is still no energy. Stop portraying me as bouncing off the walls, especially with caffeine. Caffeine just catches my body speed up to my brain speed, settling me down a bit, at least mentally. 

-people not getting when i say I’m overstimulated, or need some time alone to process or re-energize, and following me, or continuing to do the overstimulating thing. I will literally. lose. my. mind.

-when people shut me down after I share something that is really important to me, or make fun of me for liking something an “abnormal” amount. Flashbacks to overnight camp, when whenever I said anything about horses, they said I had to do five squats, and when i got really excited about discussing the differences in riding styles/types with another person who really liked horses, but rode english, they said that it was obnoxious, when i was just.. excited to finally find someone to talk to and who felt the same way after, basically, years and years of no one getting it or wanting to listen or talking with me about the thing. To this day I don’t discuss horses with anyone, cuz it hurts so much remembering that, and the fear of it happening again is still there. 

-seeing other people be ashamed about their adhd and hesitant to mention until i talk, like, super openly about having it, in like, the first 5 minutes of knowing each other. It just.. hurts.

-I’m super empathetic, not in a way that’s helpful though. Like, wincing, or limping myself because I saw you drop something on your foot, and am imagining it so vividly that it feels like it happened to me. Reading a fic about abuse or depression, and it hitting too hard and hurting me almost physically, and on a personal level because I simply cannot handle it. Feeling someone else’s pain so vividly that i can’t comfort or help them in any way, because I am so preoccupied with  feeling their pain. 

-never being able to finish things without starting something else. All the WIPs in my google docs, istg, i will be driven insane by it. 

(y’know, this was kinda fun. As a rant, but also as a way for me to identify things about myself and my adhd that i like. Like, I know its so much shorter, but I have a hard time with positive self affirmation, so it was kinda nice. I might do it again, but just the pros part cuz the cons are kinda depressing ngl.)

(OH, Y’all should reblog with your own personal pros added on! You can add cons if you’d like to :) I’m just interested in seeing how your experiences/feeling differ from mine :) )

[thessalian]

Thess vs Control Issues

Once again, I should never read the comments.

See, I was watching this:

It’s worth a watch - it’s about microtransactions as an accessibility issue for the neurodivergent. Gambling addicts for sure, but also people with ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder (particularly during a manic phase), depression ... basically anything involving impulse control issues and/or not enough dopamine to the point where they’re doing whatever they can to get that burst of dopamine just to help them godsdamn well function. Games companies that do microtransactions are basically preying on the vulnerable, with all of their tactics serving to damn near laser-target that kind of behaviour. So yes, it’s an accessibility issue. While they’re building systems to help the physically disabled sometimes, the neurodivergent are prey.

And this one individual is going on about how, “Can you people not just take responsibility for your actions?” and someone else going, “Well, if you just made the right choices instead of letting your brain do things automatically...”

It’s that second one that bugged me enough to actually stir that particular toxic soup. Because seriously, they brought up autonomic functions. Breathing and heartbeat aren’t controlled by the same part of the brain that deals with higher function, and aren’t subject to the same chemical interactions in the same way. I mean, it’s not like we understand a whole lot about why the brain works the way it does, but we do know that if you haven’t got the right balance of chemicals, “just controlling your actions” is a lot harder. Especially when the brain that’s controlling the actions and deciding what actions need controlling is the same brain that thinks it’s a great idea to blow $60 on a bunch of Overwatch loot boxes.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I almost certainly have ADHD. I have not sought diagnosis or treatment for this, mostly because I’ve reached something of a detente with it thanks to a few years of cognitive behavioural therapy and some self-awareness. My impulsivity issues tend to ram up against my executive function issues; if I want to make an impulsive purchase, my executive dysfunction tends to kick in and they cancel out enough to let me think out what I’m doing. Side note: when I was on antidepressants, my impulsivity issues were reduced but there was nothing to balance out my executive dysfunction and I was a lot less likely to actually do much of anything. My methodology for when I’m understimulated and bored is to turn to my impulsivity enough to pick something to do, and let my executive dysfunction handle any fallout that might financially inconvenience me. Let me tell you, I’d never have started running D&D for people if not for my tendency to do impulsive shit. But if I want to impulsively, say, order takeout instead of cooking, my impulsivity and executive dysfunction battle it out until something more concrete takes over and makes the decision (which is either, “I hurt too badly to cook and this is an investment” or “I’m hungry now and am not in a place where I can even decide what I want to eat, let alone wait for it to be delivered, so I’ll cook what I have and eat quicker”).

Not everyone can do that. I acknowledge this. The problem is the people who don’t acknowledge this; the ones who think everyone must be able to do the things they can do with their own brains and anyone who doesn’t is just lazy. It’s not lazy; it’s chemical imbalance and lack of adequate coping mechanisms in concert. The human body is a badly-run chemistry set wrapped in skin, and if yours is working as intended, you’re one of the luckiest people on the planet, because all things taken into account - physical disabilities, neurodivergence, all that kind of thing - I figure that 100% healthy people are in the minority. Not that they’d admit it because again, they can’t fathom that a disability exists if they can’t see it.

My body lacks the chemicals to adequately process lactose. Something in my system has decided that gluten is the enemy. And my nervous system decided to go haywire earlier this year with no apparent reason. That’s not even taking into account the brain chemicals issues that I mostly get around by pitting the symptoms against each other until some kind of balance ensues. The chemistry set that is my body is an absolute mess, and I know I’m not alone. But people like those shitheads sure do make me feel that way, and I bet they do for others, too. Well, you’re not alone. Those shitheads are ... well, shitheads who have even less understanding of how the brain works than most and really need to understand that if the brain controlling the thoughts and actions prioritises the dopamine from certain actions highly enough because it’s so starved for the dopamine, “just thinking about what you’re doing” isn’t going to happen because the dopamine-starved brain will not allow it.

Right. Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’m going to go indulge my understimulation issue by picking up a video game and playing that for awhile.

[theangrycomet]

Comparing KO’s (OK KO) Character Arc to Cassandra’s (TTS)

Ok THIS^ actually bothers me and I really hope it’s a shit-post. Sorry, @astratic, but you have inadvertently signed up for some Character Analysis.

Let’s establish one critical difference between Cassandra and KO before we really dig into this shall we?

Cassandra is a fully developed, fully functional adult roughly in her early to mid twenties.

KO is a CHILD, who’s age is literally 6-11, though fans typically agree that he acts in the 8-9 range. Additionally, he is commonly head cannoned to be on the Autistic Scale and/or ADHD.

Because of this, their decisions and actions need to be seen through different lenses.

Point 1: work tirelessly to become a hero like [parent] who you idolize

KO:

This statement perfectly depicts KO’s goals. KO strives to be a hero in order to help people to the best of his abilities. He hates being useless and powerless to help his friends, so he trains to be a better hero and works through his struggles with their help. He lives to be like his mommy and his father-figure. I mean, look at him when Gar praises KO and tells him how proud he is of him.

Cassandra:

Cassandra’s goals are different. She wants to be a guard at the end of the day for glory. She wants people to see and acknowledge her abilities and strength and admire her for it.

Yes, making her dad proud is a benefit of that, but that is NOT her driving motivation.

Point 2: Become discourage by lack of progress and hindrance by social status

KO:

Social status was NEVER KO’s problem. His stalling in progress, as I mentioned in another post, was a mental block. He couldn’t tap into his power He came from lower middle, working class family with a single mom.

Cassandra:

Social Status was her problem, but only up until the 1st season finale where she was placed as Captain of the Guard.

She had regular progress in getting more time and respect as a royal guard. The fact that She CHOSE to leave that behind in order to follow her crush on some half-baked, unplanned road trip is only the fault of her own. She threw out the chance she had been waiting for for her entire life to follow Rapunzel.

And than was given numerous opportunities through out the trip to leave and pursue other goals. 

Point 3. Be Mentally Ill

Okay, first OP, you could phrased that WAY better. 

Secondly, the mental struggles our characters face are completely different and largely incomparable so to group the two is insulting to both characters.

KO: 

Disassociative Identity Disorder (or multiple personality disorder) 

Possible Undiagnosed Autism and or ADHD

KO develops Disassociative Identity Disorder, due to his frustration at lack of progress, the manipulation of Shadowy figure, and his bottling up of negative emotions. KO is mostly unaware of what happens when TKO is in charge and vice-versa. It took the two a long time to figure out how to work together and eventually merge back into one personality. 

He also demonstrates some traits typically associated with Autism and ADHD, though some of those could be on account of his age. It is a common head cannon amongst fans that his either and sometimes both. 

Cassandra:

Cassandra doesn’t have to deal with any mental illness until the season 3 finale where it can be gleamed that she’s working through depression if you squint at it. 

Yes, there is the Blueberry Ghost, but she was never a result of Cass’ mental state so much as her being host to the Moon Stone. 

Her struggles lie in reigning in her anger and her pride so that she can see problems from unbiased perspectives and apologize for her actions. And that is left still unresolved by the time the finale comes around. 

Point 4. find out long lost parent is actually horrifically villainous and have a whole crisis about it.

Perhaps, we need a little reminder here before I dig into this one:

KO is a child figuring himself out and Cassandra is an adult figuring out what she wants in life.

KO:

KO had been struggling with his darker side for quite some time before he asked his Mom about who exactly his dad was. 

This was something the show had demonstrated time after time that bothered KO, not knowing who his dad was.

So he finds out his dad was this big time hero, and gets reassurance from that fact that he comes from great heroes, so he too can be a hero. Only for that to be immediately tossed out the window when it’s revealed that the only person he hates in the entire world, the person he dubs as the truly evil villain, is actually his father. 

His whole world is not only shook to its core, but his self-confidence as well. Laserblast was a great hero who turned villain; what does that mean for a hero-in-training whose already struggling with that darker side. 

Praise Carol for not killing PV on the spot. 

Additionally, PV didn’t actually know KO even existed until a few months before this incident, and wasn’t even sure if KO was his kid (KO does coincidentally share a lot of Physical attributes to Gar) until KO came busting in, wearing Laserblast’s helmet and bragging about how his dad was a great hero.

So when they attempted to have that father-son relationship, it was as awkward and strained as it should have been. (I’ll get to the OK KO Finale in just a minute)

Cassandra:

Cass could have cared less as to whom her real parents were. She had her dad. She had her goals. She had her job. Who her parents were and why they dumped her on the Captain was irrelevant to her life. 

She didn’t care until Season 3, and that whole season was OOC for everybody, 

Even then, it wasn’t so much as a crisis so much as an excuse to use to fight Rapunzel. It didn’t matter that Gothel was her mother, it mattered that Gothel picked the Sundrop over her. Which in all honesty was the best thing that could have happened to Cass.

Her “crisis” revolved around a dead woman’s shattered legacy more than her mother. 

Point 5: Fall under the influence of said Villainous parental figure

KO TKO: (again, a CHILD)

TKO was used and manipulated into letting his darker side show by Professor Venomous/ Shadowy Figure, (this is my opinion), in order to actually have something they could relate to eachother on. 

Yes, Shadowy Venomous saw TKO as more of his tool for power, but you can’t deny that he wasn’t motivated to have his son by his side. 

Additionally, KO had at this point literally locked away a part of himself because he didn’t have the tools to deal TKO with this mentally or emotionally. So he responded the best way he could and pushed the problem down so he and others wouldn’t have to keep cleaning up TKO’s messes.  

KO was in desperate need for someone to understand how he was and how to help him.

And guess who was there.

Cassandra: (again, an ADULT)

Cass was never led on by Gothel, she was led on by Zhan Tiri.

Cass was delusioned that the moonstone was hers by Zhan Tiri just as much as Rapunzel was delusioned into thinking stopping the moonstone was her destiny by Demanitus. 

However, Zhan Tiri really didn’t make Cass do anything, she never pushed her past the breaking point, she never forced her to do anything. 

Baked Ziti only prompted Cass, reminding her what she was angry at. 

Cass was perfectly capable of ignoring her and doing her own thing. 

Point 6: suddenly and dramatically betray everyone you love even as they plead with you to stop. Become convinced they all hate you except for [villainous parental figure] who is actually just manipulating you to gain power.

This point is actually a very good description of what happened to both, given different contexts. Again, remember that KO is a child who is significantly more easily influenced than Cass should have been.

(Note: again, Zhan Tiri’s not her Parental figure and neither was Gothel)

Point 7: ruin everything and destroy your home

KO TKO:

His destructive rampage was motivated by the betrayal of the one person he believed to understand and support him entirely. He was literally grabbed by the shirt, lifted in the air, told he was nothing more than a tool at best, and that the plan to conquest together had been a lie. 

Wonder where I’ve seen THAT BEFORE?

(Sorry about the low photo Quality, I quickly search and screen shotted so)

(yes it’s this scene that made me think Mad Ben and TKO would get along)

Cassandra:

Which betrayal are we talking about? Because both involve trained guards rightfully attacking Cass for injuring the crown royalty and wrecking the castle.

Point 8/9: snap out of it at the last second and be horrified at what you've wrought/ the world is fixed by an incredible magic. Reconcile with your loved ones. Flourish

KO: 

This is accurate. 

But KO didn’t have to lose his power to see how bad he messed up. He was actually at the top of his game. He probably could have taken out the President of the Universe if he really wanted to. Instead he begged for everything to get fixed, and wished that EVERYONE (even Professor Venomous) could live their best lives. 

Cassandra:

She was only repentent AFTER she lost her power. Even then, she does not apologize for her actions but rather the circumstances and ONLY to Rapunzel herself. She does not care that she caused a world catastrophe, and still wouldn’t have had she won. 

With how it was executed, Cass did NOT deserve such an easy redemption. She should have had to work at it. She should have at least attempted to apologize to the people whose lives she ruined. To the people she’s hurt. Not just Rapunzel. Rapunzel has no right to forgive her in place of everyone else. 

Eugene should not have to forgive her.

Varian should not have to forgive her.

The Brotherhood honestly deserves to fight her in combat. 

She should not have been able to ride off into the sunset and avoid the consequences of her actions. 

BUT I digress. 

IN SUMMARY:

KO and Cass, while they share some similarities, do NOT have the same Character Arc. At all.

Sincerely, 

TheAngryComet

[windandwater]

so I started adderall and hoo boy. lemme tell you. what a wild feeling, in so many ways, but especially right now where I’m like “I’m not doing anything shouldn’t I be panicking” and my brain is like “no. you have a lot to do. but you’ve also been working really hard. so it’s okay to take a break for a few minutes” and I BELIEVE MYSELF??

WOW

anyway here’s some stuff under the cut about it because I can’t believe how well this is working out.

background: I’m hypoglycemic. one big reason I decided to do this was, I was having this issue where I get depressed if I don’t eat sugar. I was eating sugar to feel joy. I am at risk for diabetes but even if I wasn’t this is not...great. I’ve always had to watch my blood sugar and I’ve always been careful about what I eat but in recent years, the amount of actual dessert/candy I eat has gotten mildly out of control and my doctors have told me to watch my sugar and I just...wasn’t able to.

one of my coworkers who is also not-neurotypical and as such knows her shit, told me that this whole “sugar to feel joy” thing is an ADHD symptom. I knew I had ADHD (I’d been diagnosed in high school) but wasn’t being treated for it, but had never been told this was a symptom, and at that point I was like, you know what, fuck this, I can’t get my health under control on my own if I’m not being treated for my mental health as well. I’m talking to my psychiatrist about this.

so I did. enter adderall. and now I wanna talk about it because it’s been FASCINATING and I am all about brain medication when you need it. so here goes!

also I live-tweeted my first 24 hours on adderall because it was SO WILD and I’m so glad I did even though I have three (3) followers, more on that in a minute

(me: I can’t tell if it’s working, it’s supposed to kick in in 30 minutes but--wait I think my brain just went bOOP

coworker: is bOOP good?

me: it’s WEIRD)

the good

Y’ALL THE SUGAR THING WORKED IMMEDIATELY. oh my god I was stunned. absolutely stunned. I still absolutely have a sweet tooth and enjoy eating sweets but I can eat a normal amount, at normal times, and not because I need to feel something. it’s because I want to eat something sweet. I can’t believe in 24 hours I went from complete inability to control myself to just...not having to. brains!! who knew!!!

I focused on an entire conversation the entire time. the entire time. I was even very stressed because my blood sugar was low and I needed to eat, but I was able to put that aside because I knew I could deal with it when the conversation was over! WHAT THE HELL!

since then it hasn’t been that easy because conversations are, quite frankly, often very boring, especially for work. but it’s easier to focus when I need to, and not zone out halfway through or have to do something else in order to focus. or start stressing/thinking about other shit that doesn’t matter. I can listen to what people are saying!!! for an hour! it’s crazy!!!

I wasn’t tired all day! this is also part of the bad. you’ll see.

I feel more in control of my days now, and less like time is speeding by at a rate I don’t and can’t comprehend. I’ve gotten fairly good at planning out and prioritizing my time anyway, but now it’s like...better. and easier.

executive function is online, and as I alluded to, no more self-guilt-tripping if it takes me a minute to get to things. they’ll still get done! it’s okay! if I don’t do something right away I will still do the thing! I have years of experience parceling tasks into small pieces so I do them, but less so with not still getting on my own case about not doing them right away.

if I don’t have music or a podcast playing at all times, I can still focus on work. it’s still pretty nice, it’s just not absolutely necessary. this is throwing me off hardcore but it’s kind of nice to be able to be in silence occasionally.

I can still multitask but if I’m NOT multitasking I don’t feel like I’m going insane, and also, I don’t feel like my brain is hanging by a thread at all times that might break and cause everything to explode.

a tweet I made: “I was researching something and when I got frustrated I kept at it and didn't have to go take a break to do something equally frustrating and pinball back and forth between them until they both got done. I might have just been weaponized? “

it’s true. researching/looking stuff up is one of my skillsets and...I’ve been weaponized.

the bad

my appetite is allll fucked up. we’re adjusting the type of medication I’m on to try and mitigate this but wow it’s an appetite suppressant and wow that’s not okay when you’re hypoglycemic and have to keep your blood sugar up.

my sleep is also fucked up. anxiety keeps me from falling asleep and I’d gotten to a good place re: falling asleep at night. however I was also in a very bad place re: sleeping constantly (sleep apnea? quarantine depression? who knows!). but waking up constantly during the night ain’t the solution, chief. so we’re also adjusting to see if we can do something about that.

regarding that: the first night, I literally just did not get tired. it was very upsetting. if I hadn’t tweeted about it I would’ve had an out and out panic attack, but one of my friends talked me off the ledge, telling me she had the same experience when she first went on it. I was not warned and I wish I had been. I was still able to sleep (she wasn’t, when it happened to her) but hoo boy. no thank you.

pharmacies like to babysit you when you’re on controlled substances. ugh.

more shit to keep track of. ughhhhhhhhhhhh

unfortunately, I had a hard time finding mainstream resources for this stuff online. I’ve read a lot from tumblr and heard from other people’s experiences, but when I went looking for, say, information on adderall & sleep...a lot of it is related to addiction. I had a similar problem with ADHD & sleep: I wanted to know more about whether ADHD can make you really tired like I was, or whether it was just an insomnia type of thing, and there just wasn’t a lot out there. this isn’t really a problem with the drug, but like...it’s a pain when you really want to learn more about something, aren’t in a place to talk to your doctor yet, and are just left to the wind with the mainstream internet assuming you’re abusing a substance.

definitely also felt like I had to lay the groundwork with my doctor...I had been planning to talk to her about this for a while, so I mentioned my ADHD diagnosis early on so I could bring it up at some point and not just out of the blue ask her for meth. this stuff is hard.

(not making a statement of any kind of recreational drug use/addiction, just...I hate the US medical system. a lot. everybody loses.)

so that’s how it’s going! sorry for the long post, but I did want to document this somewhere besides twitter, and maybe some of y’all are interested.

oh also, my other favorite thing that happened is my doctor said to try to keep track of when I take the medication and it wears off, and I literally told her that that would also be a good marker of whether or not it’s doing its job, because in my natural state I literally cannot remember to do that, with anything, ever. and I did! I managed! WILD

anyway end the stigma. ♥️

[superlinguo]

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Dance Instructor and Stay-at-Home Mom

For a while now I’ve been wanting to interview someone whose primary job is primary caregiver, but plans have often fallen through because it’s a really busy job. I am so grateful to Aubrianne Anderson for taking the time to join the interview series. Aubrianne is not only a full-time parent, she also is a dance instructor, trading a house of kids for a studio of kids every week! Aubrianne is on twitter as @baubitt).

What did you study at university?

I have a BA in Linguistics from the University of Oregon. I was one of very few declared freshman linguistics majors because I always knew I loved languages. I attended a Japanese immersion school from kindergarten all the way through high school, then spent a year abroad in Slovakia as the world's worst exchange student. As it turns out, wanting to learn a language isn't as important to the experience as the desire and ability to make friends!

I am on the autism spectrum, so the idea of making explicit the rules of communication that everyone else seemed to implicitly understand was appealing to me. As I learned more, I was increasingly drawn to the phonetics and phonology side of linguistics, as well as the clinical applications, especially relating to autism. I got a job working in a speech and language lab running test subjects between the ages of 5 and 8, including some kids on the spectrum. I ultimately completed the postbacceloriate classes required to apply for grad school in Communication Disorder Science, and since it was almost a freebie, a Japanese minor.

What is your job?

I got married and ended up having kids shortly after I graduated college. My firstborn is both high-functioning autistic and academically gifted, so he takes a lot of time and energy. My background in linguistics and Communication Disorder Science, while somewhat limited, has made me the most prepared mom this kid could have, but that doesn't make it easy.

Full-time parenting and housekeeping can be an all-consuming, ego-destroying job. Fortunately for my sanity and continued sense of personhood, I am able to get away a few hours a week and teach dance. Usually that means going into the studio with a dozen or so kids and trying to get movement patterns from my head into their bodies, troubleshooting where something gets lost along the way. Ideally I am able to keep them engaged and entertained along the way, and create a dance for the end-of-the-year recital that makes them look good and maybe even has some artistic merit!

How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

Part of what appeals to me about both dance and linguistics is looking at and describing complex motor pathways and the nuance of meaning attached to them. I am fascinated by how much harder it is to describe and teach these actions than it is to execute them. I have had a number of students with various neurodiversities, and I am glad to have the context to understand how I can help them get the most out of my class.

Do you have any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

College was tough for me. As a "gifted" kid, I had always been able to skate by in school with very little effort. That all changed when I got to college and encountered material I couldn't fake my way through. I wish I had gotten better grades so I could make it into grad school in my hometown, where I have my dance studio and my parents can be an important support network for my family. I wish I had known to read the syllabus before I showed up to class and found out midterms were happening. I wish I had gone to office hours and cultivated more relationships with professors. I wish I had looked into an ADHD diagnosis when I felt the brain fuzz keeping me from thinking clearly about what I needed to do for my classes.

Any other thoughts or comments?

I am very grateful to my linguistics background, not only because I enjoyed it, but because it helps me be a better mom and dance teacher. I couldn't have predicted that I would end up exactly where I did, but linguistics is such a broad field that it applies to every possible field, however tangential it may seem. I am definitely a better mom and teacher for having studied linguistics!

Recently:

Interview with a Transcriptionist

Interview with an Exhibition Content Manager

Interview with a Community Outreach Coordinator

Interview with a Marketing Content Specialist

Interview with a Software Engineer

Check out the Linguist Jobs Master List and the Linguist Jobs tag for even more interviews

[ourimpavidheroine]

I’ve gotta say, I’m really enjoying these stories. Also, your late father sounds like an amazing man. I can really see the inspiration for LoLo come out in your mentions of him.

When my mother got pregnant with me - a planned pregnancy, they were young when they married but I was born 16 months later - my father knew from the get-go that he wanted a girl.

This was (and, I am sad to say, still is) an unusual thing for a father to wish for. Most fathers wish for a son. My Dad, however, was raised by a drunken, abusive, narcissistic man and he was afraid that if he had a son he’d just turn into his father. He thought a daughter would help him break that cycle of abuse. 

When I was born he told the nurse who brought me out to him in the waiting room that I was an angel, and Angel was the nickname that he alone called me.

He and I were very, very close, something that made my mother and younger brother jealous. (I didn’t really see or understand that until after he died when I was 26.)  There was nothing whatsoever or remotely sexual about it, which is what people usually assume when a father and daughter are very close. As my girlhood best friend said to me a few months ago, my father thought the sun rose and set on me, thought that I was his fairy princess. All of my odd, Autistic/ADHD weirdness was something he loved. I always knew he loved me not just despite my weirdness but because of it. (Something that my late wife did as well.)

My father was a brilliant man. He graduated high school at 15 and went into university to study architecture. Academically he handled it, but he was way too young to handle the social aspects as well as the responsibility of it and so he dropped out a year later. Things were apparently hellish with my grandfather and my Dad enlisted in the Army on his 18th birthday. This was 1965 and the US started sending soldiers to Vietnam. Not my Dad, though. He took some tests the military gave him and after boot camp spent his entire three years on a Nike missle base in the middle of Milwaukee, working on one of those huge old mainframe computers (you know, the kind with punch cards). I’m guessing they didn’t send the really smart ones off to be killed.

He taught himself how to be an architect through reading books at the library, including textbooks that he would sit and read at UC Berkeley’s library, even though he wasn’t a student there any longer. Then, after he had learned that, he read through engineering and physics textbooks. Then he read through every single book he could find that taught him how to actually build the structures he had learned to draw. He was completely self-taught, and the man not only designed and built complicated, Broadway-worthy theater sets he also designed and built houses from the ground up. He wanted to build a rock retaining wall at our house (which was located at the base of a hill and was on an incline) and so he went to the library and got a book about how Romans built walls and spent three years going to the local river to source variously-sized river rocks to build that retaining wall, which he did completely without any kind of mortar, just balancing the rocks perfectly. It’s still standing, 40 years later.

He always worked at very menial jobs - he was a line cook, a stocker in a supermarket produce department, an RV park manager, etc. He was terrible with money, didn’t understand it at all. We lived right on top of the poverty line. He had zero executive functioning and that caused a lot of problems for all of us and meant a lot of broken promises, too.

I am completely sure that like me, like both of his grandchildren, he had Autism and ADHD. Not diagnosed of course, they weren’t in those days, But he had them nevertheless.

He was a voracious reader and introduced me to sci fi and fantasy. On my eighth birthday he gave me his copies of The Lord of the Rings and had me read them. (This was 1977, trust me when I tell you those books were not a household name at that point.)  He’d wake me up at 3:30 am and we’d go fishing together, him with a thermos of black coffee, me with a bottle of orange juice and a box of Entenmann’s mixed donuts and we’d sit there in happy silence together, fishing and enjoying each other’s company. He was a wonderful storyteller and only once did he get angry with me. He never laid a hand on me or my brother but the one time he got angry with me he slapped me across the face and then the both of us cried.

He taught me many useful skills, like how to jimmy locks and how to walk through people unseen and how to learn on my own how to do things and how to make the world’s best pie. He always told me that I could absolutely anything I put my mind to. When I asked him once if that meant I could be a father - I was joking - he looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I actually wanted to be a father. When I told him no he responded that he had said if I had put my mind to it, and he wasn’t vouching for anything I pulled when I didn’t care.

He also told me that I was the strongest person he’d ever met and when I scoffed at that he shook his head and said, “Angel, most people see you and they have no idea at all what’s inside of you and what you are capable of. There is nothing in this life you won’t overcome. Someday, when we’re both dead, you come find me and tell me I’m wrong.” (So far, he has not been wrong.)

He was a functioning drunk; he only drank after 8 at night, however. Just enough to make sure he’d not be hungover in the morning. He was a night person and all his life only needed about 4 hours of sleep to be completely rested.

He loved movies but he hated to go alone and usually took me. Not all of these movies were appropriate for kids my age but there it was. When I was eleven he took me with him to see The Elephant Man and I broke down completely, devastated and sobbing, horrified at how cruel people were to the lead character, just because he was different. After the movie we sat in the car and he held me until I was done crying and when I was all done he told me to never forget how the movie had made me feel and to remember that no matter how different people were from me they were all human and deserved kindness, compassion and understanding. This was a lesson I have tried very hard to live throughout my life. He took people at face value, and that included everyone. I don’t think he was particularly woke based on 2021 sentiments but he tried very hard to treat people equally and that included queer people during the AIDS crisis, too.

He was a feminist and believed women should be equal to men. He walked the walk, too: he cooked, he cleaned, he changed diapers, etc. And by that I mean he did them as par for the course, as part of his daily life. He did not rely on my mother’s emotional labor to remind him to do shit. He just did it because things needed doing and he was a grownass man, not a man-child. He did not consider caring for his children as babysitting, either.

He liked to sing. My mother and brother have opera-quality singing voices - for real, both of them are quite gifted - but his wasn’t like that, it was just a perfectly ordinary, passable baritone, just like mine is a perfectly ordinary, passable alto. He sang and he whistled when he was happy and I do the same. He used to make up funny little songs and rhymes on the spot, he had a gift for improvisation that way. I wish I had inherited that but alas! No.

Even when he was a boy all of the neighborhood kids would come to him with broken toys to be fixed. He quite genuinely liked kids and even teenagers and spent a lot of time working with the local high school drama department, building the sets, working as the stage manager and setting up and working the lights and soundboard (he taught himself to do that as well) and even directing some of the plays when the drama teacher was out on maternity leave. To this day I still get contacted by people who were in school with me or my brother who tell me what an influence my father was on them, the special things he did for them to make sure they knew he was paying attention and cared. One guy a couple of years ago contacted me on Facebook and told me that he got into some trouble after high school, even got imprisoned for a few months. My father visited him in prison and afterwards took him to AA with him, became his sponsor, helped keep on the straight and narrow. He named his oldest son after my father, in fact. I hear a lot of those stories.

He loved books and he loved music and he taught me to love those things as well. He fell in love with my mother when he was seventeen and married her five years later and came to regret it - like his father, his wife was an abusive, narcissistic person. He stayed with her, though, until my second year of university, when he abruptly walked out on her, went to AA and quit drinking. I asked him about it later; he told me that he had wanted to leave her for years but knew that if he did he’d never see me or my younger brother again. The courts in those days automatically gave kids to the mother and my mother was an accomplished liar and would have told the courts anything and they would have believed her. Once I was out of the house and secure, then he was done. (The fact that my brother was only fifteen and left to fend for himself with my mother was...not good. Not good at all. My father was not perfect and he was not a saint and that was a mistake that still has repercussions today.) He did not do enough to protect me from my mother while I was growing up, however. He regretted it, he told me later. I understand now that he was constantly walking a knife’s edge, trying to keep her satisfied enough so she wouldn’t try to take me away from him, but it took therapy long after he died for me to really understand that.

His special interest was model railroading and he built these amazing, intricate landscapes, all by hand and by scratch. The man took latex molds off the sides of rocks to build mountains with and built buildings out of tiny pieces of wood and such. I spent many hours with him as he built, listening to music and reading or just laying there, thinking my thinks, or sometimes chattering nonstop to him.

He called me, every single Friday night, right after the X-Files ended, right after the child’s voice said “I made this.” My phone would ring and we’d chat for hours, talking about the show (we both loved it) and whatever else. He lived about 5 hours away from me at the time and we did talk at other times during the week but that was our standard date. He died in the middle of Season 2 and to this very goddamn fucking day whenever I hear that “I made this” I wait for my phone to ring. And I cry every single time because he will never call me again.

I absolutely think that meeting my late wife via the X-Files was my father, watching out for me. When my twins were newborn and pretty much all I did 24x7 was breastfeed them I re-watched the entirety of X-Files on the DVDs I had and I’d talk to my father in my head, telling him about his grandchildren.

He’d always buy the new Stephen King books in hardcover and read them and then give them to me to keep. He especially loved the Dark Tower series but I haven’t finished the ones that were published after he died. I bought them myself but they are still sitting on my bookshelf, unread. I just can’t.

He died in the hospital after being in a coma for a week. The ICU nurses were very kind and showed me how I could turn off the life support machine if I wanted to and told me that I could be in there with him as long as I needed. They very considerately closed all of the curtains and closed the door to the room. I was alone with him in there and I turned off the machine and I held his hand and I sang to him as he died. I didn’t want him to be alone. 

He was right. I was strong enough to do that. It hurt, though. It still hurts.

He’s buried in California with a free military headstone because my comfortably upper middle class grandfather refused to shell out for a headstone and I was flat broke. Many years later I had a regular stone engraved with the words, “Go then, there are other worlds than these” and I placed it at our summer cottage here in Finland for him. I like to think that he and my late wife are keeping company. They never met here, but they would have liked each other very much, that I do know.

[copperbadge]

hi Sam! do you think its a good idea to just go to a clinician/psychiatrist and say "I think I have ADHD, I'm having trouble in school and I'd really like medication for it?" Apart from the whole, I'm a minor and they might fear I'm a druggie- my ADHD symptoms has improved so much this summer when I finally left my abusive mother. My grades have always been great, and I would probably hide my neuroses on the actual interview and hyperfocus on any tests they give me so I'd score okay

Oh man, there is a lot going on in this ask. Not in a bad way! But a lot.

First, I'm glad you got away from your abuser, and I hope you're in a good place with people who are looking after you. I do think it's a good idea, if you feel you're struggling, to speak to a professional about the issue, especially if you have access to one easily. But I'd like to try and reframe your thinking a little bit, because while I understand the urge to say "I think I have ADHD and want meds, how do I get those" the underlying issue is different.

Don't get me wrong, I am really loving my Adderall and I'm not at all against medicating for issues that medication can fix, but medication doesn't always (or even usually) magically work at the perfect dose the first time out. I've never had a medication work for me like the Adderall does, and part of that is down to luck, finding the right med in the right dose on the first swing.

What you want, actually, is to find out why you're struggling, and to get help with that struggle. "Why you're struggling" may very well be ADHD, and "get help" may be medication, but framing it differently helps you to work towards a goal, instead of feeling like you're faking your way through. And it helps you get the help you need, not the help you may think you need. When I got evaluated for ADHD, I specifically asked also for an evaluation for Autism; I was pretty sure I didn't have it, but because my father did and brother does, I wanted to rule it out -- or get treatment for it, if it was that and not ADHD. I wanted a solution for my problem, but I wanted to make sure I knew what the problem WAS.

When you take an ADHD evaluation, most of them are really just a questionnaire (my eval was more extensive than most). They ask stuff like "Do you lose belongings frequently" and "Do you get told you interrupt a lot". As a student, you may be asked about your study habits, like whether you tend to do all your work last-minute, or whether you have trouble paying attention in class. Hiding behaviors, or lying about the ways you feel and act, is not going to help anyone get an accurate view of your issue, whether it's ADHD or something else. And it makes you look more like you're seeking drugs even if you aren't.

What you want to do, when speaking to someone about potentially having ADHD, is to show how you feel, behave, and act without coping mechanisms, which is different from concealing behaviors you think wouldn't be found acceptable. Do I lose my keys? Very, very rarely. You know why? Because I have a muscle-memory developed where without even thinking I put them either on a hook (at home) or in a special pocket of my bag (outside of home). Would I lose them constantly if I hadn't spent like fifteen years doing that? Sure would! When I spoke to my current psych, Dr. C., he asked me about the keys and I could have just lied and said "Yes, I lose them all the time." Instead, I said "I used to. I had to develop really strict protocols about where my keys go, and if I break protocol yeah, I do lose them." That actually made him MORE convinced I had ADHD, because he understood I saw the problem, fixed the problem, and still struggle sometimes. Context matters, it's not something you can hide if you want to get to the truth.

If you receive a diagnosis, the next step is to get help, and this is where you may need to be a little more focused on a goal. My initial evaluator suggested an "executive function coach" and coping mechanisms; she was against medication. I knew that I wouldn't benefit from a coach and I already have coping mechanisms, and I was still struggling, so I made the decision to speak to someone with a specialty in medication management, who I knew would be more open to prescribing for me. I said "My last psych recommended coping mechanisms. I'm not happy with white-knuckling my way through life anymore and I want to try medication."

Presumably you, like me, don't have a history of substance misuse or physical issues that would make it impossible to take the meds, so trying medication is an option you should be allowed to explore. But you may have to be a bit of a self-advocate there, and framing it as "I want to try this treatment option" instead of "I want medication" is a better way to go, both for yourself and for the person treating you.

This is a process where, unfortunately, we combine "You have to be open and transparent about your struggle" and "Sometimes the psychiatrist you speak to is a dickhead and will take advantage of that." It is still important to be honest, to say "I need help, I think this is how I need help, can you confirm this for me" and just know that if your dickhead alarm goes off, you can smile and nod and go get a second opinion later. Hopefully you have someone in your corner who can help you with this, since as a young person your dickhead alarm is not yet finely tuned. (No shade; it's probably better than mine was at your age.)

At the end of the day, I hope you're safe, I wish you luck, and I want you to get a diagnosis and some GREAT meds. I just think it's really important for someone to tell you that you don't have to hide parts of yourself in order to get there. You're in a new part of your life now, hopefully with people who care about you, and relearning how to feel safe and be vulnerable in that safety can be really difficult and also very frightening. But it's good for you, and it's the best possible way to get the help you need. GOOD LUCK!