Is there something you planned to do before you got trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?
Are you yelling at yourself to get up and do the thing, but you can’t, because you’re trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?
Consider this your save point.
Put tumblr down, stand up, stretch, and go do the thing you planned to do. Future you will be incredibly grateful.
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#adhd #neurodivergence #executive dysfunctionSo calendars were the bane of my existence for most of my life. When you have ADHD, all the usual advice about getting organised and using calendars is laughably unhelpful. Usually, I’d make a strong start – I’d buy a really cool calendar or planner, I’d use it correctly for anywhere up to a week, and then I would fall off the wagon entirely and completely forget the calendar existed. I would then assume I’m lazy, because I didn’t know I had ADHD, and when my plans fell apart, I always blamed myself.
A few months ago, I found something that works for me. It might be helpful for you as well!
champion-of-hircine asked:
I've recently had it that three different professionals questioned my diagnosis of ADHD. And it upsets me greatly because with being diagnosed I finally found an explanation for WHY I was different as a child and why certain things upset me/were difficult when other kids had no problems. Idk if anyone had a similar experience but because I'm not hyperactive (I have ADHD-PI) I get questioned all the time ;;
tfw-adhd answered:
Yeah, a lot of people with ADHD-PI are told that “they don’t look like they have ADHD” because people are assuming that everyone who has it has to be obviously hyperactive. (And this goes double if you’re AFAB since all the stereotypes about ADHD are based on how it affects boys because they were the only ones studied when ADHD was recognised to be a condition.)
In my experience, both in professional practice as a psychologist and also as someone who has ADHD, hyperactivity looks different in AFAB people. It’s turned inward, instead of outward. AMAB kids tend to be physically hyperactive, while AFAB kids tend to be internally hyperactive – vivid daydreaming, tuning out conversations, thoughts going incredibly fast, etc. There’s an unfortunate number of mental health professionals who don’t understand that.
Personally I’ve found that I can’t sit still, but I was socialised to sit still anyway, which usually results in a constantly jiggling leg or playing relentlessly with a pen/pencil. Not ‘traditional’ ADHD hyperactivity, but it’s basically the only outlet my brain thinks it has.
When I first started therapy, the first activity I was given was to write stuff down. I wrote fiction all the time already, and my therapist went ‘you know you can write down the truth in your head as well, right?’
I remember being boggled. I also remember having a lot of trouble with it, because head?? truth?? what?? stuff?? feelings?? you can’t just write feelings down, that’s stupid, words can’t express all the ??????? going on in my head, can I just write a line of ????/?? and call it a day?
But with practice, it worked.
If you’re having overwhelming feelings, try writing them down. Find the method that works for you. For me, it helps to write a letter to someone – maybe to the person who hurt/offended me, maybe to a friend I trust. Other people find it helps to write broken disconnected stream-of-consciousness. Maybe you’ll find it helps to write a bullet list of the thoughts and feelings you have. Maybe for you, it’s not words that help, it’s pictures; maybe you want to draw your feelings. Maybe a comic. Maybe you need to write it like it’s a short story where you’re the protagonist.
For me, I try not to act until I’ve written stuff down. I never show it to anyone else; most of the time I don’t even reread it. The moment I finish I file it away and I move on to something else.
The reason this helps me is that it’s a feelings purge. It gets my feelings out of my head, helps my brain process them, and highlights whether or not I need, or want, to take action.
If a friend upsets me, I write them a message in a word doc, and then decide after I’m finished if I want to send it. 80% of the time, I don’t.
But most importantly, I stop obsessing. When I can’t process feelings, I’m stuck. My imagination is stuck. My executive function is stuck. I obsess over whatever happened, endlessly. But if I sit and write the feelings down, my brain lets go of them, and I can’t even begin to express how freeing and relieving that is. Give it a try. It might take some practice, but the benefits are fantastic.
Given that A) I went undiagnosed for the first 25+ years of my life and B) people often don’t believe that ‘high-functioning’ autistic people are genuinely autistic, I thought it might be fun to start keeping track of what I do when I’m home alone and feeling no social pressure whatsoever:
me, every time i come across a post listing the symptoms of adhd:
Hi there! I’m a psychologist who was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and I wrote a thing over here about how to self-diagnose responsibly, and how well-researched self-diagnosis can be good actually.
Tl;dr: you don’t invalidate ‘official’ diagnoses by applying a label to yourself, as long as you’re using that label to actively improve your mental health.
I’ve seen people express fears about self-diagnosing a mental health or neurodivergent thing, and for good reason – medically speaking it’s usually a bad idea. (Just look at basically every single story and joke about WebMD.) A medical doctor might recognise their own symptoms, but they will still need another doctor’s diagnosis in order to be medicated, because it’s impossible for any of us to be objective about ourselves.
However, getting an official mental health diagnosis can be prohibitively expensive or otherwise impossible. Depending on your location, your financial situation, and your access to safe and effective therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists, getting officially diagnosed might just not be an option for you. So what do you do in a situation like that? Just keep suffering in silence?
I’m a psychologist, and here’s what I’ve told others in the same boat:
My therapist, who specializes in adults with ADHD, recently told me that all of her clients need a three day crashout period after a big life change. Finish the semester? Crashout. Change jobs? Crashout. Go on a really cool, really relaxing vacation? Crashout the moment you get home.
It's true of literally all of her clients. She works with a lot of them to put systems in place so that their crashouts are only three days. This includes the high-powered execs who travel regularly for work. It does not matter how successful or high functioning they are - they have ADHD, and a crashout is just part of the process of living with it.
I'm sharing this with all you ADHD friends out there, just in case you (like me) start shaming yourself if your crashout lasts more than one day. It turns out three days is kind of the best case scenario. Be kind to yourselves!
As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one thing that’s been helping me grapple with the intense shame I have over all my “wasted potential” is accepting that potential doesn’t exist and never did.
This sounds so harsh, but please bare with me.
I procrastinated a lot growing up. I still procrastinate today, but less so. And yet, I got good grades. I could write an A+ paper that “knocked [my professor]’s socks off” in the hour before class and print it with sweat running down my face.
I was so used to hearing from teachers and family that if I just didn’t procrastinate and worked all the time, I could do anything! I had all this potential I wasn’t living up to!
And that’s true, as far as it goes, but that’s like saying if Usain Bolt just kept going he could be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Why does he stop at the end of the race??
If ANYONE could make their top speed/most productive setting the one they used all the time, anyone could do anything. But you can’t. Your top speed is not a speed you’re able to sustain.
Now, I’ve found that I do need to work on not procrastinating. Not because the product is better, even, but because it’s better for my mental health and physical health to not have a full, sweating, panicked breakdown over every task even if the task itself turns out excellently. It’s a shitty way to live! You feel bad ALL the time! And I don’t deserve to live like that anymore.
So all of this to say, I’m not wasting a ton of potential. I don’t have an ocean of productivity and accomplishments inside of me that I could easily, effortlessly access if I just sat down 8 hours a day and worked. There’s no fucking way. That’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s fine not to live up to an illusion.
And if you have ADHD, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: you do not have limitless potential confounded by your laziness. You have the good potential of a good person, and you can access it with practice and work, but do not accept the story that you are choosing not to be all that you are or can be. You are just a human person.
Hey folks, if you’re nonbinary and feeling invalidated by the people in your life – especially the medical professionals in your life – to the point where you sometimes wonder if maybe you really are wrong about your gender after all, I have a story for you.
I live in Australia. I live in one of the most liberal cities in Australia. I lived in the US before that, though, so when I came out for the first time as agender and began seriously considering surgery, I was fully prepared to be dismissed, belittled, questioned, and invalidated at every single step of the way.
That’s not what happened, though!
When I met my GP (general practitioner) for the first time, all the intake paperwork separated ‘sex’ from ‘gender’, and had ‘nonbinary’ as an explicit option for gender. When I introduced myself as agender to my GP in person, she immediately went ‘great, so what are your pronouns, what title do you want me to use (Mx), let’s get that all official for you straight away.’ She hasn’t once misgendered me, and she’s written more than one referral letter that refers to me as ‘they/them’ without fail.
When I was exploring the possibility of having ADHD, she referred me to a white cis male psychiatrist she described as being completely up-to-date with gender-diversity issues. I kept my expectations low, just in case, and was blown away by how he did the exact same thing, from the intake paperwork all the way to the in-person introduction. When I confessed that it would be nice to have my gender marked ‘X’ in my passport (usually used to denote intersex), he cheerfully went ‘I can do that right now!’ and together we explored the immigration rabbit hole of unapologetic bureaucracy until we found the exact form meant for a medical practitioner to fill out on my behalf.
Some of the wording went ‘check this box if the passport-seeker is intersex (non-binary)’, and my psychiatrist squinted suspiciously at it and said ‘I do not think that word means what you think it means’.
(We then geeked out a little about Princess Bride together. It was awesome.)
He put his name on legally binding documentation advocating for my passport to display ‘X’ for my gender.
My GP also referred me to a gynecologist to discuss the possibility of surgery – again, someone she assured me would be respectful. And she was right. I explained to the gyn why I wanted surgery, we explored our options, and then she agreed with me that surgery was the best option for me.
Just like that. It was that simple. The surgery would be covered by medicare – I wouldn’t pay a cent out of pocket. All I needed was support from a psychologist, which I definitely had, and a second opinion from another gyn. I was a little worried about that one – in my experience, male gyns don’t listen to you — but again, he didn’t misgender me, he listened to what I had to say, and then said ‘I don’t see any reason not to take you at your word on this’.
This is what an inclusive, respectful world looks like. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s ‘not medically practical’ to be outside the gender binary – my GP, gyn, and psychiatrist would all beg to differ. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re wrong about yourself and your experiences. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t get quality medical care and basic respect at the same time.
If you’re nonbinary, you’re valid. Period. I hope my experiences here help you believe that. I hope that the network of incredible medical practitioners in my city accepting, respecting, celebrating, and advocating for nonbinary individuals helps you remember that a better world is possible, and that people who invalidate you are just flat-out medically, biologically, and ethically wrong.
anodymalion