I Was Gonna Make A Thread Last Week (ADHD thread)

sorry to bring this post back but this was me for a LOT of my first degree. the only reason it wasnt the same for my second was bc it was in computer labs most of the time
it sucked so bad when i would literally just arrive at a class and not be able to keep my eyes open. it even happened to me when i was being briefed on a job agenda....as i was actively sippin coffee......

 

unable to tell Insufficient Calorie Consumption loopiness apart from The Concerta Has Left The Building loopiness

 

i have thought i had this for a long time, it’s really terrible. this and other reasons are why i basically gave up on my dreams. i thought i was a genius because of hyperfocus, but really i’m uh, disabled. it really sucks. i’m on meds for it, wellbutrin. i’m supposed to be taking guanfacine, but one of its side effects is a 60lb weight gain and i uh, don’t love that for me.

 

i find it really hard to remember details of things that happened in my life. to lay out all the proper background information for a story in a way that paints a picture. i'm scared. what's wrong with me? why can't i remember, think, speak? i'm trapped in my own mind.

 

@jacktrash

it is probably malnutrition yeah... i’ve been nutty with food all summer

i’m sorry you go through so much.

 

I don't know if I have ADHD. All the descriptions of it sound like "it me!" but the psychiatrist I went to for a diagnosis listened to the story of my early life, asked "so you stopped getting up and running around in class once you realised it was not allowed?" and told me I probably didn't have it.

That said, here is a way I leverage the Tomorrow Is Not Real effect to get stuff done.

1) have a variety of tasks to do around the house, including things that are right in the open and make you feel guilty when you look at them
2) spend all day telling self "you really gotta do that" and not doing that
3) notice that it is Late and you should be going to bed soon, feel bad about wasting the day
4) tell self "okay, let's just forget about today and do those things tomorrow."
5) immediately feel better because Tomorrow is an imaginary place that doesn't exist
6) (this is the sneaky part) tell self "let's just make a list of things that we are definitely doing Tomorrow, starting with the most pressing."
7) happily make a list because, again, Tomorrow is fake, so tasks no longer feel bad to think about
8) once list is made, tell self "how about just doing that one right at the top, since we've already visualized it and all, we can start Tomorrow in the right frame of mind"
9) task is no longer Thing I Should Have Done Days Ago, but Thing To Do Tomorrow, which I am getting a head start on because I am a productive person with great planning skills
10) Task gets Done!
11) see if you can leverage Just One More Then, but if not, be happy that at least one thing is Done, go to bed early and feel accomplished

 

I’m not an expert by any stretch, but that sounds like bs to me. I think some psychologists who specialize in early childhood ADHD tend to disregard adult ADHD symptoms. that happened to me when I was first trying to get diagnosed - the first person I saw was an old dude who asked for my kindergarten school records and didn’t want to hear anything about my current life. if you’re invested in getting officially diagnosed I’d recommend shopping around, trying to find someone who primarily works with adults! also afaik you can find the exact diagnostic quizzes that the docs use online.

 

hi I may have ADHD but I will likely not get an actual diagnosis/actually Do Something About It so yay *dabs*

 

*skips to each sentence of a paragraph in a random order* why have I not assimilated this information

 

also: can't read fanfiction because I'm hyperfixating on canon. can't relisten to canon because i JUST did that. spins in circles

 

My ADHD rejection sensitivity is playing 5 dimensional chess and getting angry at unspecified People for judging me for avoiding washing my dishes, and also getting defensive at the hypothetical idea of washing my current dish pile

...because hypothetical People are going to say "see don't you feel better now that you've taken care of that? (read: i think you are very stupid and bad because you had to be told to do this, i told you so)"

literally nobody has said anything about my dishes but i'm just angry about them

Edit: the drying rack is now full of clean dishes >:C fuck dishes theres still more to do

 

I've discovered something.

my sleep schedule has always been fucked and the biggest hurdle has been. getting myself to STOP DOING THING and go to bed. even in bed getting myself to stop touching my phone and close my eyes bc brain won't turn off.

the few days I've taken my bike to get groceries, (bc avoiding public transport as much as possible) I have gone to bed at the time I would like to instead of at 5am.

this leads me to believe that to get myself to go the fuck to sleep I need to...exercise.

 

i still have notifications on for this thread so why not give an update

last time i was here i was during the beginning process of fighting for my adhd diagnosis, i was frustrated and struggling.
now i'm on concerta and it's doing a lot for me, i feel continuous memories and narrative and my mood is leveled.

i was approved for a neuropsych eval which will help me understand if i have adhd or other types of brain damage from drug use or trauma

i truly do not study this in depth but my best guess is that my recall of long term memory is being improved. i think i remember reading about adhd and it impairs the recall of long term memories. but that could be wrong about adhd and actually be something that's unique to my particular brain damage

 

So here's a thing where I seem to be genuinely different from ADHDers.

A common suggestions I see is "get rid of the doors on your kitchen cabinets, because if you don't see a thing it ceases to exist for you".

I've never had a problem with not knowing where things are in my kitchen.

When I was moving in to the apartment before last, I started putting my stuff away in the kitchen. The cupboards only had two drawers, and one drawer has to be the medicines/utilities drawers, so the other has to hold both cutlery and utensils. I had too many utensils.

I selected a number that I knew I didn't use as much, including sushi rolling mat, meat tenderiser mallet, and can opener, and put them in a cabinet that was up on the wall and behind me when facing the main prep area, and mentally designated that as the "infrequently used stuff cabinet".

Six months later, I purchased a can of pumpkin pie filling (for Halloween cookie purposes). As I was starting to line up things for my cooking, before I could finish consciously formulating the thought "I am going to need the can opener for this", my body was already turning and reaching up to the Infrequently Used Stuff cabinet to retrieve the can opener that lived there.

Does that square with being ADHD? I mean, cooking *is* among my interests, and I consider the kitchen to be My Territory where everything has its appointed place. I would no sooner forget where everything lives than I would forget the lyrics to my favourite anime OPS.

 

Having a Place for Everything is another common solution to that problem! It works for me up until the point where I put something Not in Its Place and then it's gone forever lmao

 

i have no problem with having kitchen utensils put away in drawers and cabinets— i don’t have so many pots or whatever that i’d lose track of them, and i don’t get new kitchen stuff that often. plus, there's like, a limited number of places a thing could even be in a kitchen. instead my “out of sight, out of mind” ADHD manifests as needing to cover leftovers with clear cellophane instead of opaque foil (or put in clear plastic containers). because when i open the fridge trying to figure out what to eat, my brain won’t parse things as food unless i can visibly see that food. there are other examples, but food is the worst for me, because it's so transient. i know i own a garlic press, and i know it'll be in my kitchen somewhere, so even if i can't immediately find it in the first drawer where i look, i know it's gonna be in one of the drawers. (although it did take me several months to actually remember that i owned a garlic press, once i finally bought one!) food, on the other hand, is constantly being rotated in and out so it's much harder for me to keep track of what even is in my fridge unless i can see it at a glance.

(so the "take the doors off your kitchen cupboards!!" thing would also be useless for me, although there are other areas in my house i deliberately use pegs or shelves instead of drawers for things.)

 

Yeah I think the "make everything visual" advice is hit or miss depending on the person, and if it's a thing you don't relate to about ADHD stuff, that doesnt like disqualify you from having it or from benefiting from other ADHD strategies