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It's a weird kind of missing. After so long I had almost forgot it - that particular flavour of pain, this agony... I shouldn't miss it. In a way I don't. But there's an ironic kind of pleasure at being able to feel it again.

It means it's over.

The loud despair that drowned everything, that screamed so high it made all else a whisper: it's over. I can feel normal pain again. And although it's awful, it's familiar. Like returning to a messy house after a strenuous day: maybe it's not ideal, and there's still so much work to do, so many things to fix, but it is home.

I'm home.

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I hate the thing with ADHD where you're bored bored bored and keep moving around to try and fix the listless feeling but nothing is helping so you're just bouncing around in an endless cycle of boring things games books apps that only help for less than a second and then it's bored bored BORED to the point words are bad and noise/music isn't distracting enough to keep attention and games are turned off after a few minutes because nothing is calming the restless DO SOMETHING feeling that's swallowing you whole until you want to scream about how bored you are and everything isn't calming enough or exciting enough-

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‘am i Having A Brain Problem or Being a Shithead’: a short procrastination checklist

aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)

lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)

1) do I honestly intend to start the task despite my lack of success?

yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question

no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.

2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?

yes: next question

no: guess what? this is the real next task

3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?

yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.

no: next question

4) do I know how to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.

5) do I have everything I need to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.

6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?

i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.

i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?

the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?

I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)

i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?

no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead

7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?

yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.

reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.

no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t. 

reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.

8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!

probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.

if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.

hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU

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need a mini example of ADHD + RSD + emotional dysregulation??

[ADHD]: one thing i am constantly getting called out for is talking too loud. i was helping my brother with something and he got upset that i was talking so loud and started yelling at me (oh the irony)

[RSD]: i was immediately flooded with feelings of embarrassment because i didn’t know i was talking so loud and frustration because i can’t always control my volume. I felt like my brother hates me and thinks i’m a bother. 

[Emotional Dysregulation]: I can’t remember if I yelled back at my brother, but I stormed out of the room, and the second I left I started crying. This intense emotional outburst lasted about a minute, and then i was fine.

this was something I thought i didn’t struggle with because I am really good at hiding my emotions as a response to trauma. I rarely have emotional outbursts in the presence of other people, but I do internally feel emotions very intensely (emotional hyperarousal) 

RSD = Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria is an intense emotional response caused by the perception that you have disappointed others in your life and that, because of that disappointment, they have withdrawn their love, approval, or respect. It is exclusive to ADHD. [1][2][3]

Emotional Dysregulation = inability to properly modulate and regulate  (positive and negative) emotions. ADHDers experience acute difficulty with frustration, impatience, and excitability. Emotional dysregulation is not exclusive to ADHD. [1][2][3][4]

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Fuuuuuck my memory

I go to sleep thinking "oh, now I can finally rest and sleep all morning". But then at 8 A.M. my brain goes like "are you suuuure that super important paper you delivered yesrerday was supposed to be written in the first person, and not third?". And of course I can't go back to sleep before I find the fucking edital and check everything again, it doesn't matter that I have already read it a dozen of times.

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I hate that sudden feeling that everybody hates me and/or is annoyed by me after I say something. I never know if I'm actually being a nuisance or if I'm being paranoid.

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Aaaand it's official: I have The Shit^TM (a.k.a. ADHD).

Just waiting for the paperwork to get finished, now, and I'll have the proper documents proving it. I'll finally be able to take the right meds and cut the ridiculously high amount of depakote I take =D

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Changing (or going back to, in this case) routines is so haaard! I'm back from my parents' house and I need to readjust to my small pretty home. I really like it here, don't get me wrong, but the change of ambiance is so disorienting! I don't remember how things work, were the stuff is stored, I keep walking in circles and forgetting what I was supposed to be doing and getting distracted/sidetracked by anything... It's maddening. Also putting this body of mine back to work... Habitica is helping a lot, but I still must time better it's notifications, 'cause even with the app I keep forgetting to do important stuff like keeping track of my expenditures. Uuugh, I hate having such a strict routine, but I'm basically a slave of it if I want to get anything done... Else what I'm quiiite sure are ADHD symptoms eat my liver. I'm so lost and agitated and aaaargh, it's like they are up to eleven since I got here. I just want to curl in a ball and spend the rest of the day on my bed, preferably sleeping. But I have work to do, so... There I go.

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“I don’t think people understand how stressful it is to explain what’s going on in your head when you don’t even understand it yourself.”

— Sara Quin

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I hate talking to my dad

I feel so anxious and impotent and grudgy and ashamed and angry for feeling ashamed... I want to cut him off, it's healthier to cut him off, since I can't forgive what he did to mom. What he did to me, to my family... He really screwed up, time after time, and he holds no regrets about trying to alienate me or all his shameful attempts at manipulation. I know that if I get close he'll only do it again, only shatter my heart again... Because sadly, even if I know and despise what he's done, I still care for him... And I know he cares for me too, although his love is like twisted torns against my skin, like his love for my mother was... It would do me no good to let it take root. And yet I can't cut him off. I need him. I hate it but I need him. And even if I'd rather cut all ties, I'm the only one in the family who actually speaks to him - all my siblings already gave up or blew things up on purpose, and my mother even deleted her entire social media to keep him from stalking her... So any time we need something judicial I'm the one who needs to contact him. And this makes it seems like I'm a fucking money-grabber, only appearing when it's convenient. But no - I'm just socially awkward like that and almost never contact people. And even worse: even before the divorce one of my father's favorite pastimes was to spend hours saying how I'm just a faking money-grabber that don't care shit for him, day after day, in person, by phone, by text... He'd do everything in his power to shame me into coddling him and criticizing my mom, and he would only get madder when the second part didn't work. He'd also work day and night, never giving me chance to actually be with him. He'd also miss any presentations and important things I had unless my mother forced him to come. He'd also spend his off time either dead drunk or sleeping, never caring to talk to any of his children. He'd forget my birthday every year, including the one I spent off Country. He'd not even know when I was sick or healthy. He neglected me at every turn and had the gall to say I was the one who didn't care, when I genuinely tried to fix our relationship more times than I can ever count, only stopping because my therapist told me I had to either choose to forgive everything or to let him go for good.

I can't forgive him... Not for the things I listed here. I mean, not only for them. If it was just this shit, I could easily forgive and forget as long as he regretted the shit he's done and stopped doing it for good (not only saying he'd stop, but actually doing it. He already lied about doing so several times, to my despair and disappointment). But there are things that were not done to me, but to the people I love... To my family. To my mother. To my siblings. And I feel anything done to them as if it was done to me, maybe even more intensely... It is like a shiv piercing my kidneys. Rage, hatred and disgust build in like a vicious bile at the door of my stomach, ready to be thrown up in a rain of curses every time I even consider giving forgiveness. He's hurt them, and he holds no regrets - only cheap excuses he tells himself for his life's mistakes.

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My head aches, I'll blab in mixed languages 'cause I can and nobody is reading this anyway

Sometimes I hate it when I get the realization that something I always struggled with, that I always gave my best trying to fix, is just... Another adhd symptom. That it may be wired in my brain and thus impossible to get rid of. It's annoying, it's depressing, and it's even kind of... Relief-indulcing, since it eases the crushing guild of failing time after time at being normal - or functional, at least. I don't want to fit whatever absurd standard society holds as "normal", but I wish I could live my life without struggling to do things that are supposed to be easy, simple.

But I derail.

The realization of the day is about anxiety... I can't mildly worry. It's always either "these thoughts are consuming me like fire, be it consciously or invisibly burning me from the inside" or "problems? What problems? I'm a potato with only a vague understanding of things like 'future' and 'consequences'". I prefer the second state of mind for the obvious reason of "I compared the other one to burning alive, what else did you expect?", but the first state is somewhat prevalent. Often in therapy my psychologist would say that I should stop worrying about things I had no control over, stop looking at trouble that would only hit me in years like I had to solve it right now... But I couldn't. The best I could archieve was to "turn everything off" and act/feel like the problem didn't exist at all. It wasn't today, right? So it was in the vague-sense-of-a-future-that-I-can't-ever-visualize. Was this vague sense a week? An hour? An year? A decade? Hells, I hated when the psychologist asked those vague fucking things... "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" I don't know, Karen! I don't understand time, and as far as I'm concerned it's a miracle I'm not dead yet!

So yeah, I have I worry-switch in my brain aligned with time: it's either "it is/feels like rn and I'm freaking out" or "it is later and whatever". Even when there's obviously enough time for the task: if you tell me I have 1 minute to answer a simple addition question I'll freak out and tell you 2+3=4, my entire body shaking in a light anxiety attack. If you give me five seconds to answer 1+1 I'll probably cry. But if you decide to give me a menial task with a deadline that my brain doesn't recognize as "rn"... Oh dear, you're playing with Lady Luck, because I may never do it at all. Or I may do it in that instant without any of the anxiety, who knows? It's weird and confusing and makes no sense until you put adhd into play, then everything falls into place like the pieces of a puzzle.

I hate puzzles.

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It's the third day in a roll I stay awake past 1 AM researching about Ancient Egypt. Things are starting to get out of hand once again... I hope I don't screw up my shores because of a damned fixation again x-x

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I feel drained, but I did several nothings today. I don't know why I'm this tired... I slept decently last night and woke up on my own, so it can't be sleep related... People around me are tense, but they were worse yesterday... Ah. The university thing. I forgot about the gigantic scare I got earlier when I thought I missed an important e-mail from college that would hinder my entire academic plans. Luckly I was wrong, I did answer the e-mail. The adrenaline jump still was high, however, and right after this incident it was heightened even more by someone suggesting we had a presentation to make next week, in another fuckig city. They were wrong too, the presentation is in two weeks. But now I think I'm in an adrenaline hangover ('=

My head hurts and I want to sleep. But my jaw is clenched and I'm overactive. Also my attention is worse than normal and I just want to be left alone. And to research about Ancient Egypt, but my head hurts too much for that. And I have responsibilities to keep, uuuuugh, but I'm too wasted to do anything decently now, and good writing requires attention and care. If I can't do things in time, the least I can try is make them as perfect as possible. I'm already late anyway.

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