The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves)
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@too-old-for-this Oh so much of this. I LOVE buying things for other people. I was suuuper anxious for my co-worker to open her present at the zoom party yesterday. I wanted her to like it sooooo bad.
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Years ago I decided I'd pick 1-2 people a year to gift. I can't afford to do more nor do I have the time since I often do a lot of handmade stuff.
I do struggle with wanting to gift other people but I feel better long-run being able to put the time and effort into these great gifts than a bunch of smaller ones.
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@macha I am compulsively checking my phone, my Secret Santa gifts for my co-worker are being delivered today.
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HowToADHD just did a video on finances: How to Fix Your Credit (and How ADHD Gets in the Way
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I do have to say my credit /has/ been getting better. Woo making slightly better money.
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@macha said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
I thought there was just something /wrong/ with me.
The Wisdom of She-Ra:
Sea Hawk: I mean, just once I'd like to hang out with Mermista and her friends. I'm good at groups! I have excellent stories of derring-do! Why don't they want me around? [rests head on hand]
Scorpia: [sighs] Oh, I hear ya. Catra's been so busy since she got promoted, but she still always expects me to make time for her. Does she even understand how much I do for her?!
Sea Hawk: Exactly! It seems like ... the only time anyone wants to hang is when they need me to give them a ride, or do something for them.
Scorpia: [groans] Ugh, tell me about it. Catra once used my rock hard exoskeleton as a nail file. [voice cracking] I even had to buff!
[Sea Hawk begins to laugh slowly, then more vigorously, and Scorpia laughs, too]
Scorpia: [sincerely] Is there...something wrong with us?
Adora: [slowly, slightly slurring] You know ... you guys are really great. You're just, like, the best. You're good friends, and good people. [slaps her arm around Scorpia's shoulder; squeakily chuckling] And I like you ... you are so pointy! [taps at Scorpia's shoulder spikes]
Sea Hawk: You know what? She's right. We are really great. [confidently] I'm clever, roguishly good-looking, and a top-notch sailor. [hops onto a container] I don't care if anyone else thinks I'm cool. I don't need their opinions to validate me. [shouts] I'm Sea Hawk!
Scorpia: [confidently] And me? I am brave, strong, [hugs Adora, still attached to her shoulder] give great hugs, and I'm loyal. [sits Adora down; to Adora] You may have left Catra, but someday, she's gonna see that I won't. [grows in volume] I'll always be there for her, because that's who I am!
Adora: [claps enthusiastically; happily] Yayyy!
(My point: there's nothing wrong with any of you.)
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@ganymede I appreciate the textual equivalent of a lawyer cat-boy pat on the shoulder.
(Sadly, a lot of things 'wrong' with me, come from parental abuse. And my therapist left my insurance network before Covid hit, so I'm flailing)
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@macha said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
(Sadly, a lot of things 'wrong' with me, come from parental abuse. And my therapist left my insurance network before Covid hit, so I'm flailing)
I know I'm a fangirl, but this may help a little. (Spoilers alert.) It's nice to see the subject of parental abuse treated so cogently for a younger audience.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
@macha said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
(Sadly, a lot of things 'wrong' with me, come from parental abuse. And my therapist left my insurance network before Covid hit, so I'm flailing)
I know I'm a fangirl, but this may help a little. (Spoilers alert.) It's nice to see the subject of parental abuse treated so cogently for a younger audience.
I really think I need to watch this show. That analysis video was oof.
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It is.
Like, it brings me to tears thinking about it.
It’s worth the 52 episode investment, even knowing the ending.
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@wretched said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
This. This hit me SO HARD. I rarely think about high school, it wasn't a great time for me. I overloaded on academics to get out of gym. It was incomprehensible to me that I would be graded on how fast I could run or how many situps I could do.
And then I would get into class. I would dazzle teachers with my comprehension and how quickly I picked up on source material, my notes in-class were so thorough and well-done that I had teachers use them as grading standards. I would ace quizzes with flying colors.
But I also never turned in any homework. And once we got past the learning to the repetition my scores started falling. And projects where we had to go over things multiple times were half-assed and often unfinished. And my year end tests were usually middling to bad.
And nobody could figure it out. I was called lazy. I was called unmotivated. I was told I had so much potential. And they didn't understand why I couldn't follow through. And I couldn't make them understand. My mother never understood why I went through hobbies like they were passing fads. She paid money just to have me up and quit it a few months down the road. We used to argue all the time over it.
I finally figured it out. I hated waiting for other people to catch up. I hated having to do things half a dozen times when I was ready to move on. I couldn't concentrate because someone across the room was talking and I could hear it. I couldn't focus because in my head it had already been done to death. I wanted new. I wanted different. I wanted to be DONEOMGWHYCAN'TWEJUSTMOVEOOOOOOOOOOONALREADY?!
I was called a slacker. An underachiever. A quitter. Everyone was forever disappointed in me for not living up to my potential. And they never stopped, once, to think that I was waiting for them to catch up. That experience has shaped a lot of my adult life and its only now as I get into my 40s that I can even really talk about it and not have people roll their eyes or think I'm just making shit up to cover my laziness.
I have bounced from job to job to job to decades because the repetition KILLS ME. I get so bored doing the same thing over and over and over again. And I'm afraid, because my current job is nothing but repetition, and I've just passed the one year mark, and I'm feeling antsy. Its a great company, I could get really far... except I don't know if I'll last long enough to get there.
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This sounds like an excerpt from my biography.
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@too-old-for-this said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
I have bounced from job to job to job to decades because the repetition KILLS ME. I get so bored doing the same thing over and over and over again. And I'm afraid, because my current job is nothing but repetition, and I've just passed the one year mark, and I'm feeling antsy.
Most of your post is me, but this definitely is.
It's why I'm glad I finally found work as a writer. I could have potentially (unlikely since they all paid less than my unemployment was paying me and that's saying something) found a job in IT sooner, but I hate doing IT. I hate it I hate it I hate it. It's boring. It's repetitive. It's a fucking cog in a machine where you're punished for creative thinking.
But writing... I love words. I love crafting them. I love weaving them together. And I love technical writing (which is ... not a common mindset to be sure) because it takes that love of words, my technical aptitude, and combines it into a puzzle: learn this, learn it better than the person who will be performing it, now present it to them in text (and sometimes visuals if I'm lucky enough to do those, too!) so that they, too, can understand.
I've been so frustrated lately because I keep hyperfocusing at the wrong times on the wrong things. It's like midnight rolls around, people start winding off to go to bed, and I go 'I'll work a bit on <insert craft project here> to wind down before bed'
Next thing I know it's 6am and I'm still caught up in 'Just one more row' 'Just one more section'
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I wish I could help.
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Thank you all for the response. This thread has really helped me realize that alot of the baggage I carried through the years was undeserved and unearned.
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@too-old-for-this said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
Thank you all for the response. This thread has really helped me realize that alot of the baggage I carried through the years was undeserved and unearned.
100%.
Also: you aren't alone.I know it doesn't help solve it, but it helps to know (at least for me) 'hey I'm not some weirdo freak that's irreversibly broken: this is a Thing brains can do and unfortunately mine does, but there is a community out there'
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@Too-Old-For-This I relate to your story, soooooo much.
High school - it was always about my 'potential'.
One of my first jobs - factory line work. Repetition galore. I would literally lose time. Nod off... it was horrible.
I have had too many jobs, over the years.My job now? My boss understands I'll go full speed for a while, then need to take a break to do something else. My office mate? He understands that letting me have one earbud in, lets me get soooo much of the work done (and he has to do less). I'd like to stay here. A LOT. I'm terrified of messing it up.
If only someone had realized WHY I was 'slacking'.
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@too-old-for-this said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
I was called a slacker. An underachiever. A quitter. Everyone was forever disappointed in me for not living up to my potential. And they never stopped, once, to think that I was waiting for them to catch up. That experience has shaped a lot of my adult life and its only now as I get into my 40s that I can even really talk about it and not have people roll their eyes or think I'm just making shit up to cover my laziness.
My schools did not allow competition, to the point where sports day got banned at one of them, because they thought that was the cutting edge of pedagogy. There were two people in my year who could have kept up with me and competed, but we were deliberately split into different classes for everything as far as possible, and I didn't share any classes with either of the other two (although they did share with each other for some). And we all three of us got held to the pace of the slowest in the class, and no-one got the chance to be taught more, and self-study was frowned upon (and boring anyway).
It was hell.
Geography was so slow that I practiced holding my breath while the teacher was droning on explaining the bleeding obvious (I did a lot of swimming at that point, with an emphasis on staying underwater for a while).
And no, I didn't bother with homework either. Why would I? I'd learnt it the first time round, then we spent another three quarters of an hour repeating it in class, and now you want me to do it again? Great good gods let me do something interesting, I learned that because you made me, I already know it, I explained it five times over in ten different ways to people who didn't understand it in that class, and I have better things to do with my own time.
But girls couldn't have neurological differences. We had to be polite and kind and ladylike at all times, and where competition was frowned upon the idea of a girl being ludicrously competitive - and especially taking on and beating the boys at anything - was utter anathema. My mother now admits that they should never have left me in that school, but I know there was no choice at the time. It doesn't make me any less angry at the education system of the day, though.
