The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves)
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@Wretched I feel called out.
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@Rinel said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
So, ADHD drugs. What they do is to get the dopamine factories running smoothly. You get the same hits as everyone else. No more shortages. No more explosions. Just a steady flow like it's supposed to be.
How they do that is completely outside of my ability to explain, but generally it involves overclocking the factories a bit (this is why benzodiazepines are really bad for ADHD; they slow down the already malfunctioning dopamine creators). There are non-stimulant medicines on the market, but they're newer and less numerous.
It's also why a lot of ADHD meds are really really bad for neurotypical folks, because it can screw up their dopamine production like whoa.
(Meanwhile, an artist whose Patreon I'm part of and who does comics about ADHD posted an early glimpse today at something to use to explain Rejection Sensitivity to folks, and man does it hit home.)
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All this. Well, not ALL this, I don't have Rejection Sensitivity but I have always had ADHD that makes it next to impossible for me to:
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schedule things coherently. I have no concept of time. None. Zero. If it happened more than a week ago, it could have been 2 weeks ago, 1 year, or 7 years. If you want to know what I will be doing next tuesday, I will never, ever be able to tell you. I don't know how long it takes me to accomplish any task. I started recording common tasks for a journal and then stopped before I got through the list, because...
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Follow through. See, ADHD means no time regulation + low dopamine, so the idea of delayed gratification is just a ???. I can't motivate myself by saying 'sure this is tedious but you have to do it and when it's done you'll feel proud you accomplished it'. Like, that's a lie. I can't believe it. So instead I come up! with Ideas! and plans! and get dopamine hits off THOSE. Or play games, that have constant, quick and engaging things to achieve!
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Rest. I'm lazy and worthless and always procrastinating. I have feelings of DOOM near constantly. Am I forgetting something? I'm definitely forgetting something. I definitely did/said/didn't do/forgot something and now I am I N T R O U B L E
Always exhausted, because the second guessing and berating about my brain is a full time job! On top of my full time job. For me, ADHD meds make it so I can get out of bed, and feel awake and relaxed enough to actually start my day. Just. Pick a task and dive in. I can work on something and make conversation with the people around me without stressing or completely losing my progress.
And that lasts for 3-4 hours and then I get a headache and the exhaustion comes back. But it is far, far better than nothing.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
All this. Well, not ALL this, I don't have Rejection Sensitivity but I have always had ADHD that makes it next to impossible for me to:
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schedule things coherently. I have no concept of time. None. Zero. If it happened more than a week ago, it could have been 2 weeks ago, 1 year, or 7 years. If you want to know what I will be doing next tuesday, I will never, ever be able to tell you. I don't know how long it takes me to accomplish any task. I started recording common tasks for a journal and then stopped before I got through the list, because...
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Follow through. See, ADHD means no time regulation + low dopamine, so the idea of delayed gratification is just a ???. I can't motivate myself by saying 'sure this is tedious but you have to do it and when it's done you'll feel proud you accomplished it'. Like, that's a lie. I can't believe it. So instead I come up! with Ideas! and plans! and get dopamine hits off THOSE. Or play games, that have constant, quick and engaging things to achieve!
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Rest. I'm lazy and worthless and always procrastinating. I have feelings of DOOM near constantly. Am I forgetting something? I'm definitely forgetting something. I definitely did/said/didn't do/forgot something and now I am I N T R O U B L E
Always exhausted, because the second guessing and berating about my brain is a full time job! On top of my full time job. For me, ADHD meds make it so I can get out of bed, and feel awake and relaxed enough to actually start my day. Just. Pick a task and dive in. I can work on something and make conversation with the people around me without stressing or completely losing my progress.
And that lasts for 3-4 hours and then I get a headache and the exhaustion comes back. But it is far, far better than nothing.
Wait... this is normal?! I try to explain the first one to people. Like I'm not flaking on you, in my mind we talked two days ago, not two months ago. Or other things. I really thought this was me. I'm both kinda sad you deal with this and kinda like OMG MY PERSON.. at the same time. (Um, not that you are /my person/ but you know what I mean).
All of this.
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@RightMeow said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
Wait... this is normal?! I try to explain the first one to people. Like I'm not flaking on you, in my mind we talked two days ago, not two months ago. Or other things. I really thought this was me. I'm both kinda sad you deal with this and kinda like OMG MY PERSON.. at the same time. (Um, not that you are /my person/ but you know what I mean).
All of this.
Yeah, pretty normal for me. I have people I can not talk to for years and then just start talking to them again like we had just spoken the day before. Not everyone responds well.
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It's absolutely normal. Sense of passing time is notoriously missing in ADHD people. That's why routines are so important (haha, not that I have successfully ever implemented one).
I was even being generous. Actually, if it wasn't literally yesterday? I am 100% guessing if I ever attach a time frame to something. I can say with some certainty it was this month. This is also how we hyperfocus. We lose all sense of time passing. When i'm on meds, I sometimes think the headaches come because I look up and it's 3pm and I haven't eaten since lunch or dinner yesterday and when did I last drink water or caffeine? Whoooo knows.
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@Kanye-Qwest I wonder if my dad was ADD - he never seemed to have much concept of time passing unless there was a clock [--] that close to his face.
See, I have this GUILT thing - i procrastinate, and I know I shouldn't and and and...
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I am sorry. I don't mean to be fangirling, but literally no one I have ever met has had this issue. Or they don't understand how I forget to eat. Or how I lose all track of time. Or that I have no concept of time. I have never had someone go 'me too' and I'm ... don't laugh.. I mean I suppose you can. But I'm a little like teary eyed because OMG.. finally someone else gets it and it's not just be being a weird time freak.
It's why I am obsessive about being on time when I have to meet people too. It's because it's a plan and I worry if I'm late, I'll be like HOURS late because I'll lose track of it.
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@RightMeow it's not just you. it's not your fault, it's not that you don't care, and it's not that you're a bad, inconsiderate person. edit - and I get it, because I thought it was just me, too
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All this...
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Sometimes I forget to log onto a game for a month because I just space and then I have the hard thought of 'Do I log back in and try to explain that I really did just forget or do I disappear for good?'
Or you wanna reach out to a friend and see how they're doing but messenger logs show it's been 8 months and you wonder if they even remember you anymore even though you'd have sworn it hasn't been that long so you talk yourself out of it because you don't wanna be weird.
Time is hard.
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@RightMeow said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
I am sorry. I don't mean to be fangirling, but literally no one I have ever met has had this issue. Or they don't understand how I forget to eat. Or how I lose all track of time. Or that I have no concept of time. I have never had someone go 'me too' and I'm ... don't laugh.. I mean I suppose you can. But I'm a little like teary eyed because OMG.. finally someone else gets it and it's not just be being a weird time freak.
For what it's worth, an adult ADHD diagnosis has—at least for me—been an adventure in "Wait, that's an ADHD thing and not just a me thing?" for so many things like that, along with finally actually mentioning them and other ADHD folks being like "OH MY GOD I GET THAT." And both are accompanied by a feeling of some relief that it isn't just me.
So I 100% understand what you mean.
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This thread is a direct example of all these exact feelings. All the shit (okay most) that I was constantly hounded about growing up wasn't just something I could solve with liberal application of this mysterious intangible called 'willpower' and 'discipline' no matter how many of the people in my life 'didn't believe in ADHD' Basically I am posting because I cant give more +1's and I like commiserating about our super mutant brains.
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@RightMeow It's definitely not just you. Google ADHD and Time Blindness and you'll find zillions of articles on the subject. Here's a good one - How it really feels to be time-blind with ADHD:
Our perception of time — or lack thereof — lays the foundation for our biggest struggles. As Dr. Russell Barkley explains it, ADHD “disrupts the fabric of time.” ... Neurotypical people may wonder, what could be so difficult about looking at your watch? How could you not know how long it takes to get ready for work in the morning? How could you not have realized you didn’t have time to mow the lawn before our date?
Like @Sparks said - there are so many things that I never realized were An Actual Thing until I started researching ADHD. My family always used to talk about "Faraday Time" like I existed in some alternate dimension where time passed at a different rate for me than for everybody else. Now I know it's just "ADHD Time".
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@Wretched I just sat down and started watching her videos last night. Someone else sent me her links. Starting with https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-nPM1_kSZf91ZGkcgy_95Q. Then I watched and watched and watched. And sent it to my husband and brother lol. Not sure where this woman was when I was diagnosed 9 yrs ago, but hey! She's helpful!
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@faraday I'm realizing now, with this thread, how many ADHD signs there are in my family.
We have something very close to Faraday time. We just call it "LastName Time"
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My psychologist and doctor think I have it, but I have wonderful PTSD which also does things, so we are still figuring. My sister 160% is sure I have it. Like off the charts she thinks I'm textbook of it.
I spent my entire life hearing how I was lazy because I couldn't focus. Or how I was cold because I couldn't draw a line. How I was a flake with plans because I'd lose track of time or how I was obsessive because I was hyper focused. I spent a lot .. A LOT of time just feeling like I was broken. Like a puzzle that was missing a piece and so I came up with coping skills to put my smile on and paint myself 'normal'. This also triggered anxietbecause it goes against the very nature that I have to deal with and... it's been a trip this year. I decided to deal with mental health at the start of 2020 and.... look at 2020.
So sorry guys, this might be my bad. Haha... heh..
I'm also sure I don't need to apologize but I just feel like I have to apologize for the space I'm taking. To not take too much up. Not draw too much notice. Partly for reasons that got me a PTSD diagnosis (CPTSD to be accurate) and partly because I've been trying to cover all these THINGS that I didn't understand why I was doing them or why I couldn't use my willpower to do it. Or just change. Or, etc.
So thanks for the past day or so.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/adhd-is-different-for-women/381158/
"In “The Secret Lives of Girls with ADHD,” published in the December 2012 issue of Attention, Dr. Littman investigates the emotional cost of high-IQ girls with ADHD, particularly for those undiagnosed. Confused and ashamed by their struggles, girls will internalize their inability to meet social expectations. Sari Solden, a therapist and author of Women and Attention Deficit Disorder, says, “For a long time, these girls see their trouble prioritizing, organizing, coordinating, and paying attention as character flaws. No one told them it's neurobiological.”"
For a lot of us, much of our anxiety, depression, etc. can be attributed to the ADHD. Because I can sympathize with a lot of that, @RightMeow. I'm sure others can, too. I was smart, but I didn't apply myself. I was lazy. I was disrespectful. I was acting out. I was...
As an adult, I've had these structures. Lists. Reminders. Alarms. This constant effort to hold everything together. But when one piece fails, the whole structure falls apart. Like I'm sick right now. I can't keep up with cleaning my apartment. And all it's doing is making me feel like a massive failure. I know I'm not, I mean, a) it's still not that much of a mess all things considered (if I went to a friend's house and it looked like mine does rn, I wouldn't bat an eye), b) I'm sick, it's to be expected that I can only handle minor things.
But this is... what ADHD is for women. Because everything we (at least those of us born before 2000 roughly) know about it is based on white boys under the age of 10.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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"ADHD does not look the same in boys and girls. Women with the disorder tend to be less hyperactive and impulsive, more disorganized, scattered, forgetful, and introverted. “They’ve alternately been anxious or depressed for years,” Littman says. “It’s this sense of not being able to hold everything together.”"
"Further, while a decrease in symptoms at puberty is common for boys, the opposite is true for girls, whose symptoms intensify as estrogen increases in their system, thus complicating the general perception that ADHD is resolved by puberty."
...squints in trans woman
This is incredibly validating but also incredibly confusing. I was great in elementary and middle school. It was in high school and college that I started having problems. And that was before transition.
