Tag: adhd

Before I forget again.

(Me, in one of my favorite tunics, rust-colored linen w/olive drab around the neckline, sleeves, and hem. My glasses are trying, as always, to slide off my nose. And this is the photo that shows off the double chin the least – genetics, shared with mom and her dad and his mom, regardless of weight.)

#adhd selfie

(Hey, @poplitealqueen! *grins* You wanted to see my face today.)

thatadhdfeel:

tadhdfw you wanna listen to a song and enjoy it while you are doing something else so you play it, but then the song is halfway through when you notice you haven’t been paying attention to it so you restart it and once again you only realize that it’s playing halfway through the song, and this process repeats itself like 3-5 times more.

october 22nd is gonna be adhd selfie day since october is adhd awareness month spread the word

poplitealqueen:

I better see all of your pretty faces. You know who you are…

#morgynleri#I think????

#I also can’t participate cuz like#no results for the diagnosis yet#I’d feel funny.

Yup, though the only diagnosis I’ve ever gotten out of a doctor is “social immaturity with ADD-like symptoms”, because early 90s + afab + shitty HMO = “it’s a phase, the school is right about lazy, go away” diagnosis. (At this point, I trust doctors about as well as I could shift the orbit of the planet, and can’t afford to go to one anyway, so it may be a while before I can get enough spoons together to get a proper diagnosis.)

So, hope to see your face on the 22nd too! (And if not because it doesn’t feel right to you, that’s ok.)

The ADHD Brain Fog

adhighdefinition:

– “You feel extremely spacey and you just can’t be bothered with anything. If you try to focus your mind on something, it becomes exhausting very quickly.
It’s not a pleasant feeling at all.”

– “It’s like paralysis of the mind, everything you do is as if you’re moving in a dream. You can’t even experience proper emotions because it makes you so utterly neutral and apathetic. You get so low energy, it’s as if your body is prepping for hibernation.”

– “Often, my brain fog feels like I am a wind up doll who has unwound, I am left lifeless and limp but capable of seeing and hearing what is going on around me. That or I feel like I’m living inside a bowl of Jello.”

– “It feels like your brain is constantly stuttering.”

– “It’s kinda like thinking in bullet time. Everything else is happening in real time, but the brain is perceiving and processing at a much slower pace.”

– “It’s like all your thoughts are stuck in quicksand and the harder you try to pull out the ones you need the harder it gets to do anything. Eventually everything becomes exhausting as you fight to get out of the quicksand yourself you find yourself sinking deeper and deeper, dwelling on now completely irrelevant thoughts.”

As explained by people in this thread.

*hugs you, and brings tasty drinks* ADHD is entertaining in a very horrible way, especially if you can’t get anyone to diagnose it properly, and I hope you’re able to get the doctors to listen to you and get access to treatment that works for you. And honestly, surviving with it is an achievement. Managing to art and write while trying to cope with it untreated? Is fucking fantastic, and you are that. You are *awesome*.

poplitealqueen:

If I do end up having it (which at this point, with input not only from people that have ADHD but also close family, I’m 90% sure that I do) part of me will be extremely pissed.

You mean I went 12+ years in school with nobody catching this? That all the time I spent blaming myself for not being able to study or pay attention or finish things wasn’t because I was lazy? That the depression and the anxiety have a root cause? That I have been trying my best?

There will definitely be a fury factor in that. Definitely. But also relief.

Relief that now I know what I need to treat. I’ll have resources that can help, people to talk to that will understand, medication (maybe) that will make me *waves hand* not normal (I’m my own normal, dammit) but the best me that I can be.

I appreciate you saying that, about the writing and the art and junk. I really really do. I need to hear it. Been a bummy couple of days in terms of how I feel about my creative endeavors.

(Imagine what I’ll be able to do with proper treatment, right? Boy oh boy *hugs* thanks, morgyn.)

*hugs you back* You’re welcome. And you are awesome.

As for them missing it while you were in school? My youngest brother is 28, and he didn’t get a diagnosis until sometime in the last five years (my memory is too fuzzy about a lot of things to be more exact). I still don’t have one, and I should have had one since I was in third grade.

School systems in this country fucking suck when it comes to kids that fall outside a narrow range of “normal”, and don’t do great for the kids inside that range, either. And too often, the inability of a kid to learn within those narrow parameters is ascribed to the child being lazy, incompetent, not making an effort, or just plain unintelligent. The system doesn’t want to pay to find out why the kid is having trouble, parents can’t afford the time or money far too often, and the staff are too overworked and underpaid to be able to catch everyone.

I hope to hell that they listen to you, and don’t fuck it up this time, like they clearly have for the last too many years.

Because you’re not lazy, you’re doing the best you can, and it’s the adults who never noticed, and a system that doesn’t care about anyone in it – students or teachers or parents – that failed you.

… and now I’m going to actually hit post instead of deleting this and rewriting it for the fourth or fifth time. I have some loud and cranky opinions on US school systems and support for neurodiversity, and medical shit that goes with it.

some notes on ADHDers with Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria

crylie:

> Nearly everyone with ADHD answers an emphatic yes to the question: “Have you always been more sensitive than others to rejection, teasing, criticism, or your own perception that you have failed or fallen short?” This is the definition of a condition called rejection-sensitive dysphoria. When I ask ADHDers to elaborate on it, they say: “I’m always tense. I can never relax. I can’t just sit there and watch a TV program with the rest of the family. I can’t turn my brain and body off to go to sleep at night. Because I’m sensitive to my perception that other people disapprove of me, I am fearful in personal interactions.” They are describing the inner experience of being hyperactive or hyper-aroused. Remember that most kids after age 14 don’t show much overt hyperactivity, but it’s still present internally, if you ask them about it.

> The emotional response to the perception of failure is catastrophic for those with the condition. The term “dysphoria” means “difficult to bear,” and most people with ADHD report that they “can hardly stand it.” They are not wimps; disapproval hurts them much more than it hurts neurotypical people.

> If emotional pain is internalized, a person may experience depression and loss of self-esteem in the short term. If emotions are externalized, pain can be expressed as rage at the person or situation that wounded them.

> In the long term, there are two personality outcomes. The person with ADHD becomes a people pleaser, always making sure that friends, acquaintances, and family approve of him. After years of constant vigilance, the ADHD person becomes a chameleon who has lost track of what she wants for her own life. Others find that the pain of failure is so bad that they refuse to try anything unless they are assured of a quick, easy, and complete success. Taking a chance is too big an emotional risk. Their lives remain stunted and limited.

> For many years, rejection-sensitive dysphoria has been the hallmark of what has been called atypical depression. The reason that it was not called “typical” depression is that it is not depression at all but the ADHD nervous system’s instantaneous response to the trigger of rejection.

the-last-hair-bender:

poplitealqueen:

thatadhdfeel:

“WOW IM SO GLAD MY DOCTOR TOLD ME ABOUT THIS” SAID NONE OF US EVER

“full, major depression”

“impressive, instantaneous rage at the person or situation responsible for causing the pain”

Aha-hahaa, good thing I’m not one for impressive, instantaneous rage or full, major depression! Right, peeps?

Aha…

….. Oh good.

Fuck.

(Both. I deal with both internalized and externalized, depending on where in the hormonal cycle things are. Add one more thing to the list of reasons to show a doctor about why I have a fairly firm idea on what shit my brain is doing.)