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wisteria-lodge · 3 years

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lion primary + slightly burnt lion secondary (badger secondary model) (bird secondary model)

i hope you’re having an amazing day!! here’s my SHC dilemma:

i know my primary is lion, and it feels a little exploded, at that, but at least i know what’s up. but im still extremely confused about my secondary. i tried looking through other submissions, but i didn’t really find anything i vibed with 100%, but then again i have adhd and im really struggling going through all that text, it just kinda blurs together at some point

so, my secondary. taking the test, i always get burnt, often with a vague hint towards bird. at first i immediately adopted that and decided i was a burnt bird, but the more i go the less that feels right to me and i think it might be some sort of model.

Yeah. “doesn’t feel right.” Definitely see the Lion in your sorting.

working by elimination, im pretty certain im not a snake secondary. that ish doesn’t even sound real to me, i know there are people like this because i know a couple, but it’s just so weird to me that some people are just able to improvise so effectively, and seemingly change themselves like that, and they?? enjoy it?? it does sound dope, like i admire it, but wtf.

Lion secondaries can get very *does not compute* when trying to get their head around Snake secondaries. I’m considering Lion for you.

i do act differently in different situations or with different people, but i don’t think i have “personas” as much as degrees of awkwardness

I see the burnt secondary. You’re definitely talking yourself down here. But the way you talk about “degrees of awkwardness” does make me think about the way Lion secondaries “change faces” by modulating intensity.

depending on how much my anxiety is acting up, and the more anxious i am, the more i act like a doormat and revert to the proper manners i was taught, but like… that’s not me, and it’s not done on purpose, i don’t enjoy it.

Looks like somebody’s got an unhealthy Badger secondary model.

it feels gross not to be able to act like myself, whatever the hell that is.

And you didn’t vibe with the Lion descriptions? This is the first time I’m reading though this and… very interested to get to the part where you talk about why you think you’re not a Lion.

im also convinced im not a bagder - my mother is, and there are a lot of those in my community, so i was raised thinking that was the best way to be, an ideal to work towards, but it’s just not comfortable for me, i don’t wanna do it.

Yeah, this would that unhealthy Badger secondary model you were talking about. ^

i don’t even think i *can* do it. i mean, “showing up and doing the work” is pretty hard with adhd, and not even the most efficient way of getting stuff done (at least for me), and thinking of the group and what i can do in that group is annoying. also i get that asking for help is important sometimes but it still feels like that’s just admitting i can’t figure out how to do it myself, which, yikes (don’t come at me i know it’s unhealthy)

Hey, breathe. It’s okay. Nobody is going to make you be a Badger secondary. Clearly you’ve spent enough time struggling under the weight of a model that doesn’t suit you, and now you’re pushing back against everything Badger extra hard.

id rather find a group im a good fit for instead of molding myself to please others.

See, that’s an exaggerated, caricatured way of conceptualizing how a Badger secondary works… but I’m not surprised that you think about it that way.

whatever i do, it needs to come from me.

… you’ve got a very loud Lion secondary.

anyway im somewhere between lion and bird, and at first i thought i was a bird because i do in fact fricking love learning everything i can, i wouldn’t naturally call it “collecting”, i’m just doing whatever’s interesting in the moment

You mean you learn by improvising? :) Like a Lion? :)

but sure, why not - i like collecting languages, knowledge about different cultures, books, music, space, countries, medicine, anything and everything, and i sometimes spend hours researching random stuff that im never actually gonna use “just in case im stranded in the wilderness and need to make soap” you feel? but it’s not actually because i think it might be useful (though i do get random bouts of anxiety over not knowing how to do certain stuff “in case” even though the probability id need them is infinitesimal).

Loving knowledge does not make you a Bird secondary. I’m hearing you talk about about a thing you do for fun, and - this is key - a thing you use as a mechanism to cope with anxiety. ADHD can sometimes make you feel very scattered, going too fast, and your Bird is giving you [the illusion of] control. And I’m not going to knock that. The illusion of control is important.

i just like knowing things and being able to use those things to do stuff. i wanna be “that guy” you can come to with the most obscure problem and they’d have some way of dealing with it. doesn’t that sound pretty bird?

Okay. Here’s the deal. You like Bird secondaries. You think they’re cool, and badass. Maybe you’d like to be one. But I’m still not at all convinced you are. I haven’t heard you use it to solve problems.

but i can’t actually do that stuff. i think i used to, when i was a teenager? but depression and undiagnosed adhd kinda kicked my ass, among a few other things, and now i don’t really have the brain power for it and i feel like im not actually able to learn things as well, or to even think straight.

Wow. That is some burnt secondary talk. I can’t do things.

(I promise you, people with ADHD have absurd brain power, and can learn things crazy well, although not in the same way as neurotypicals. You are right about not thinking straight, which I am interpreting as “in a straight line.” ADHD people think in webs and corkscrews and I love it.)

or if i did, i can’t learn as *many* things as i need to feel accomplished? which idk what you think but it kinda just sounds like burnt bird to me.

Feeling like the secondary you have isn’t good enough can be a Burnt thing... but feeling like you need to manifest a specific secondary *more* (which is what this feels like) is usually a sign of a model.

but here’s the thing. all of those sound real nice. and cool. and a good way of doing things, maybe even the “right” way, even though i know that’s subjective. but lion just feels more comfy, and idk if that’s because im a burnt bird modeling lion or if it’s smth else.

… you mean… like being… a Lion?

cause the “collecting skills and knowledge to solve problems” thing sounds cool, but it’s actually more just the first part that i vibe with? the part where i get to learn stuff! but when actually solving problems, i don’t usually think too long, i just vibe. i see where my instinct is taking me and i apply reason *after* that, or like, as a secondary, support thing. im not a dumbass either, im good at puzzles and logic problems, i can totally think things through and use my skills! but that’s not really how i approach problem-solving. i just jump into the situation and see what part of it is closest and start there, or what’s convenient, or what just feels right or nicer or whatever.

This is a perfect description of a Lion secondary with a supportive Bird model. Like a LOT of neurodivergent people (hi!) you built yourself some scaffolding using the Bird toolbox.

and on one hand it could be that im not confident in my skillset enough to do things the bird way, but on the other hand, thinking back to my childhood and teenage years, when i had better executive skills and i wasn’t as completely scatterbrained as i am I now (i was, but not as bad in some ways), i still did this? like, all of my major life decisions where made on the spot based on instinct and nothing else

I’m definitely seeing the Lion primary come though as well.

whenever i have a problem of the interpersonal sort i just face it and talk to the person and don’t bother hiding or sugarcoating things even if it means hurting that person because i don’t want to lie or come off as something i’m not, when i need to work on a project i don’t bother planning, i just jump in and a strategy forms in an organic way as i go, you know what i mean? isn’t that what this “charging” business means?

Yes.

anyway i have no idea which one is a model and which one is actually mine. i love learning things but i don’t care about actually using them. i mean i like it, of course, but it’s whatever. planning is tedious and it kinda gives me validation because im meant to be “smart” and i guess planning is what smart people do, but it’s annoying and nothing ever goes exactly to plan anyway so you just have to pause and plan again or whatever, and that’s just so boring and frustrating??

I get that you like Bird secondaries, and I get that the picture of “smart person” in your head looks like a Bird secondary but just like… come on…

why not just do the damn thing?? and then what you have to do will be obvious anyway?? and sure, if you planned ahead, maybe you’d already know what you need to do and you’d have prepared it and you’d do it better, but who’s got the time for that?? i can’t use my brain like that! i need to live the thing before it actually feels real enough for me to think about solving it.

I have never read anything more Lion secondary in my entire goddamn life.

i hope this actually made sense and i gave enough relevant information, my head kinda feels jumbled right now. i mean it makes sense to me but i don’t know how this reads from an outside perspective. maybe i should have planned this like an essay or whatever lmao

thanks a lot for answering these & running this blog!!! it’s dope and you give really good insights and you’re just a super cool person!

<3 <3 <3

#LION SECONDARY #badger secondary model #bird secondary model #lion primary #sortme #sortinghatchats #wisteria sorts #submission

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lesmiserabby · 3 years

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9, 18, 23, 42, 44, and 48 for the autism asks

Thanks for the asks, these are fun!

9. What was your first special interest? I just answered this one, but to quickly sum up again, probably unicorns, dinosaurs started around the same time though. Titanic is the first one my family can solidly pinpoint as being an obvious one though.

18. Do you find it easier to get along with other autistic people? Yes. I very much do, or even just other neurodivergent people, my sibling and a couple close friends are ADHD but not autistic. Didn't realize it for a long time because we were all undiagnosed together but then I got my diagnosis and started being open about it and whoops they all figured it out through me.... Bonus points for pretty much everyone I've ever dated being confirmed or suspected autism and/or ADHD.

23. What's the longest you've ever had a special interest for? Tolkien is roughly half my life now but also ties into the general fantasy special interest that has been lifelong. Dinosaurs/prehistory and history have also been pretty much lifelong, zeroing in on specific areas from year to year.

42. Tell us something about your special interest. I have more than one, so I'm going to try to be as much of a nerd as possible and combine a few of them into one for this. So Tolkien was a linguist. Absolutely loved languages, the elvish languages of Middle Earth weren't even his first conglangs, he was experimenting with that stuff as a child. So his elvish conlangs were actually some of the first bits of work he ever did for Middle Earth, I think it was Sindarin that got its start in the trenches during WWI. Middle Earth developed later to give his languages a home. And then when he was writing the books, he was writing them on the basis that they were being translated from the languages of Middle Earth into English. A true icon.

44. Who are your favorite autistic bloggers? Say something nice about them. @autie-j of course! Absolutely super cool and friendly and always helpful, so glad that I've gotten to know you and that we're friends and friendly youtube rivals, you're awesome! @spongebob-autisticquestions is awesome too, so many helpful posts, one of the first blogs I came across after I got my diagnosis and started finding autistic bloggers here on tumblr. @positiveautistic is also great, the posts always brighten my day and so many times I've seen exactly the words of encouragement I need in that exact moment. So many other awesome people and I am terrible at remembering names a lot of the time and big stuff on my mind right now but I really love everyone in the community.

48. What is your favourite special interest related item you own? Show it to us if you want. *side eyes at book shelf full of D&D books and dice collection directly next to bookshelf full of the Tolkien books NOT currently in boxes in parents' garage* Well... My boyfriend has dubbed it the Nerd Shelf. And I'm just gonna leave it at that for now.

#autism asks #these are fun

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atozfic · 3 years

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Love when people reveal themselves as being so obviously online and insulated in leftist/progressive circles that they seem to forget that the rest of the world is not nearly as accepting or supportive of not conforming of gender roles as these spaces are. Like when did you say the reason anyone likes femsub or the reason it's popular at all is because they're young or don't know anything about sex? To me it's pretty clear you were talking about it as a larger trend and why it's so much popular than everything else overall. And to be completely frank, what is the reason femsub is so much popular than anything else OVERALL (not why any individual person likes it or it has any kind of appeal), if not gender roles? Are women just naturally more submissive than men (not saying you think this)? Because I have seen people say this, yes even so-called "feminist" men and women, that my preferences are unnatural because men evolved to be sexually dominant and women evolved to be sexually submissive, and that I'll never be in a happy or satisfying relationship unless I make myself more submissive and change my preferences because men just naturally don't like dominant women. I'm pretty sure you would not like if I took those hurtful and negative experiences and said any woman is submissive is that way is because they're misogynists who just think it's all women's nature to be submissive. And I'm pretty sure of this cause of the way that you freaked out when you even THOUGHT somebody might be implying that when they weren't. So why the fuck is it okay for you to say dom women are the way that we are because we think we're "enlightened" or more strong or better than everyone else and only like what we like because we want to be ~not like other girls~ for attention because of your negative experiences? And I like how they only talk about submissive or vanilla women getting shamed, so true bestie, dom type women, sexually or otherwise, never get shamed for their preferences. Nope, never ever. It's not like people always joke about women "wearing the pants" in the relationship and how it means she doesn't respect her partner. It's not like assertive or aggressive women are called a "bitch" but when men act that way it's sexy. It's not like religion teaches women they have to submit to men or no man will ever love them or they'll never be happy. It's not like people say that women that want to be dominant are "acting like men" or "want to be men" and therefore are unattractive, as if dominance is inherently masculine thing. It's not like a lot of men genuinely believe that all/most women want to be dominated in bed and so they don't even have to ask, they just do things to you and try to dominate you without your permission or consent or without ever having talked about that kind of thing before. Nope, we must have it sooo easy because we've got grrrrllll powerrr on our side, all women love us cause they think we're such cool independent and empowered women, and all men love us cause they think we're just so cool and not like the other girls. Like honestly, I don't assume to know what they experience of submissive women is like or that they must have it so easy because they're preferences are in line with gender roles, because I'm not one and i know they don't always have it easy because I've heard of women in the irl bdsm community being treated badly by shitty men who think it's okay to abuse them or do whatever they want to them because they're sub identified (or sometimes just because they're women). So why is it okay for you to assume what are experience is like?

I'm not involved in any real life bdsm community because corona and I'm anti-social bitch but I do like to lurk on online communities for fun (something I should probably stop doing cause it's not good for my mento health luv lmao). This whole thing reminds me of these weird ass screeds I sometimes come across by straight male doms on reddit where they go on and on trying to reconcile their desires with feminist politics either because a) they're genuinely a misogynistic piece of shit and people call them out on it or b) they're genuinely progressive/humanist men who have some difficulty reconciling their desire to be dominant with feminism for whatever reason. And so they do this weird thing where they project these worries and insecurities outwards, and manufacture a situation where anyone who criticises gender roles at all is against them personally, and it would be so much easier if they were just a female dom instead, everyone would apparently have no problem at all with them then, cause grrrrllll powerrr.

I don't like to engage in armchair psychology but the follow-up ask from that anon made it pretty clear to me that they have some insecurities around reconciling their preference for submission with feminism because of some negative and hurtful experiences, and so they deal with it by projecting it onto anyone that suggests that gender roles might be why SOME people gravitate more towards it and why it's so much more popular than everything else. I'm sorry that those people said those things to you anon, they're wrong, but a) most of those people tend to be against all bdsm in general, not just femsub and b) you need to work out those insecurities by yourself. You can't lash out at anyone who tries to talk about the relationship between societal norms and preferences at all, it's not helpful or productive.

Also how do they know those people unfollowed you for that reason? Is that an assumption or a verifiable fact? I'm not necessarily saying they didn't either, I'm not a mind reader, but like, some people are just sexist and think women are naturally submissive, sexually or otherwise. I've met them before.

to quote my therapist: that was alot to unpack.

i'm gonna give a longer reply under the cut but i just want to state here i'm not posting this ask to offend or hurt, or even "one-up", the original anon who sent that ask regarding sub!females. i have no issue with them and, again, think they're in every right to send their original ask. i'm posting it because i do think this anon made some very interesting points and brought up alot of worthy of being discussed topics.

let me also put a disclaimer here that i am not a genius nor someone very well-versed in gender politics, i'm simply a twat on the internet with a negative mindset.

"Love when people reveal themselves as being so obviously online and insulated in leftist/progressive circles that they seem to forget that the rest of the world is not nearly as accepting or supportive of not conforming of gender roles as these spaces are."

this. omfg, t h i s. i see this so much, especially in my younger cousins/relatives who are just now beginning to develop their own political opinions. let's take the conversation away from dom/sub for one second and just focus on gender in society. one of the clearest examples of gender affecting the way someone is treated/viewed is something i've experienced first-hand: i was misdiagnosed four times before i was correctly given my diagnosis for ASD, because most of the studies regarding it center around boys and, therefore, most women go undiagnosed. in fact, for years it was believed only men could have it which is why there has been such a surgence in the past few years of adult women being diagnosed with autism. i remember hitting high school, experiencing academic burn-out (thanks to everything moving too fast + my classmates catching up to me intellectually) and having my teachers treat me like i was an imbecile, or i was lazy, rather than just someone with neurodivergence. (this isn't me implying tjat men with ASD have it easy or that society accepts them anymore than women, it's only easier for them to get diagnosed.)

"it's not like people always joke about women wearing the pants."

this applies to both the shaming of dom women and sub men. the amount of men who get treated like they're "losing their manhood" for letting a women(or anyone else) dom them is ridiculous.

honestly, I think at the end of the day (and to close up this whole issue-that's-not-really-an-issue), we're unfortunately always going to live in a world where people have opinions against either side of the dom/sub spectrum, or the whole bdsm community in general. the best thing we can do is try lessen the internal conflict, especially between dom and sub women. we gotta stop treating each other like the enemy when all we really are is people with a differing preference. at the end of the day, what someone chooses to do in their bedroom is no one else's business (unless it harms anyone) and we need to take away the importance we seem to put on it. we're on a floating rock in space, who cares if becky likes to peg her boyfriend on a sunday morning or if stacy likes to be tied up on a thursday evening?

also, anon, i like the way you worded this whole ask. despite it being long, it was easy to read and you made some great points. sorry my reply isn't more exciting, i just in general agree with most of what you've said.

#again i don't have any issue with the original anon who sent that ask #we all act on impulse when our enotions overwhelm us and i respect them for even thinking they needed to apologise #also have you guys noticed yet that i'm a little bitch who's afraud of confrontation???#we love to see it 🤸‍♀️#🎐: message board #anon asks

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adhdtoomanycommas · 4 years

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Emotional Disregulation, Privilege, and White Girl Tears

Hello all, it has been a few months since my last ADHD essay, and what a few months it has been. In case you’re reading this in the future (since tumblr has no date stamps), I am writing this in June 2020 when in the midst of a global pandemic, police are responding to massive protests against police violence with even more police violence, and a lot of white people are thinking more than ever about the privilege we have experienced. I have been thinking about writing about my (cis white female) experience with privilege where neurodivergence, race, and gender intersect for a while, and have hit the point where these ideas have been bouncing around in my head long enough I need to write them down.

Small disclaimer: Right now I'm not sure if I should be writing anything about anything since we all ought to be listening and amplifying black voices --I'm there are much better resources out there about race and neurodivergance especially, and I have no intention of talking over anyone, especially given my limited experience. But given that the audience for my last essay here was in the single digits, I doubt I need to worry too much about talking over people at the moment. Please know that I am writing this now primarily for myself, and if it ever gets an audience later, forgive me for writing it now when there are so many more important things going on and more important people to listen to.

I will do my best to stay in my lane here, so I'm just going to talk about how my privilege has affected the perception of one of my ADHD symptoms If you don't want to read some rambling white/cis anecdotes about how white privilege and gender norms affect the perception of ADHD, by all means skip it. If you're still here, maybe it can be the start of a conversation as I would love to hear some other perspectives and experiences here. And maybe, just maybe by the end of it I will learn to spell privilege right on the first try (I really want there to be an A in there, or maybe a D. Privaledge? Sounds about right.)

As I mentioned in my previous ramble, I’m a cryer. I cry a lot, not just when I’m sad but sometimes when I’m happy, when I feel guilty or ashamed, and especially when I’m angry, or frustrated, or overwhelmed. I learned recently, as I was seeking my diagnosis, that emotional disregulation is a hallmark of ADHD. We feel things strongly, and uncontrollably and have trouble restraining ourselves from expressing those feelings. This is experienced by almost everyone, if not everyone, with ADHD and it’s only not part of the diagnostic criteria because it’s hard to quantify—there are a lot of good general resources out there to learn more about this, I’m not an expert, I’m just here to share my own experience.

Story time. When I was in fourth grade, I punched another girl in the stomach. For what felt like the millionth time, when the teacher told everyone to find a partner for some activity, everyone partnered up and I looked around to find that I was the left-over. I was an outcast for a lot of reasons at that age. I told myself for a long time it was solely because I was the lone atheist (actually agnostic but I didn’t know the term at the time) in a deep south bible-belt school, but with the benefit of hindsight I have also realized that (partially probably due to the ADHD) I was also pretty weird, and probably very annoying. But whatever the reason for my ostracism, it was already weighing heavily on me when the teacher assigned this girl to work with me, and she gave me the biggest exasperated sigh and eyeroll like she would rather do anything else. So I punched her.

I now realize that this is probably a pretty normal response for a kid with untreated ADHD—the combination of emotional disregulation and poor impulse control means we often lash out. But with none of the adults in my life knowing that at the time, surely I was disciplined for my seemingly-random violent action, yes? No. I cried, and I got away with it.

That’s not the whole story, I did get several weeks of sessions with the school counselor, and I was made to write a very thorough apology letter (and made to rewrite it repeatedly as the teacher thought of more things I should add and repeatedly declared my handwriting not good enough, to such an extent the exercise definitely felt more punitive than reconsiliatory), but I ultimately I didn’t get expelled, I didn’t get suspended, I didn’t even get detention.

The girl I punched was black. This wouldn’t be relevant to the story at all, except that in retrospect I have to wonder if the consequences would have been the same if our roles were reversed. If a black girl (even a neurodivergent, ostracized, and frequently bullied one) had lashed out the way I did and punched a white girl, I expect there would have been a lot more consequences for that, even if she cried afterwards. And if a black boy had done the same, he wouldn’t have been perceived as troubled and in need of help, he would have been perceived as dangerous. And as we all (hopefully) know by now, that perception can have life or death consequences.

I’m sure that was neither the first nor the last time that crying, and people’s perception of me crying (as a cute little white girl with freckles and big brown eyes) has gotten me out of trouble, or gotten me what I wanted one way or another, but it is the most dramatic example I can think of. I want to emphasize that I have never cried to get what I wanted on purpose—I have spent way more time trying not to cry than trying to cry, the only time I’ve ever cried on purpose has been in theater exercises. But I’m sure a lot of white girls in the same position I was in (with or without the undiagnosed ADHD and emotional disregulation) have realized the way they could use peoples responses to their tears to their advantage. They probably grow up to be Karens who use their tears to get out of traffic tickets, get free stuff from store managers, and to sic violent police on black people who inconvenience them. (Aside, the only time I have been pulled over as an adult, I was trying so hard not to cry that the cop thought I was acting suspicious and asked a bunch of extra questions. I still got the ticket.

I tell myself that those people use their emotions on purpose to manipulate people, that I'm different, I would never do that. But I have to wonder if some of those same women tell themselves the same thing after the fact. I don't think it's enough to avoid intentional manipulation and intentional harm-- not anymore. We as white women need to do be conscious enough of how our emotions are perceived and prioritized to act proactively to avoid unintentional harm as well. For those of us with ADHD, this may be harder than for neurotypicals, but that makes it all the more important for us to think actively about this. I'm not sure yet what this means for me personally, besides removing myself from a shared space if my emotions threaten to become the focus where they shouldn't be, but I would welcome input on this.

I want to talk about gender more generally here as well. ADHD is dramatically underdiagnosed in women, and I have to wonder if some part of this is because emotional disregulation lines up so nicely with the stereotypes of women’s emotions in the first place. Oh, you cry a lot? Of course you do, you’re a woman. One can only wonder how many oldey-timey diagnoses of “hysteria” were actually ADHD. Even now women with ADHD are usually misdiagnosed several times with things like depression or bipolar disorder before we are tested and diagnosed properly. This wasn’t my experience, but after basically doing a bunch of research and self-diagnosing I was able (thanks to a great deal of economic privilege) to pay to go directly to an ADHD specialist. I also walked into that office with an extremely thorough bullet-point list I had compiled of reasons I suspected I had ADHD—it was probably the easiest diagnosis the doctor ever did. So obviously having ADHD while female isn’t the best combination, but when it comes specifically to crying easily that being treated as relatively normal definitely meant I had an easier time with it than my brother did.

My brother (who is nonbinary and uses a variety of pronouns—I’ll probably alternate between they/them and he/him here because it is important to the story that they were perceived as male at the time) cries just as easily as I do, and just as often. When we were little kids, this didn’t make too much of a difference. They’re a couple years younger than me, and little kids are expected to cry more. They haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD, but they and I both strongly suspect for a variety of reasons, this included, that they have it too—I believe they were flagged for it in school, probably for frequently talking out of turn, but I don’t think they were ever tested formally. He got in trouble in school a lot more than I did, for similar outbursts, and while he got quite a few of those same counseling sessions (white privilege at work again), he got more actual discipline as well. But the perception of our tears landed differently, especially as we got older.

For the most part, the scorn leveled at my brother’s tears didn’t come from our parents. My mom, (who, while also not officially diagnosed, I can almost guarantee is where we got the ADHD genes from) cries as easily as they and I do, so she understands it. My dad would certainly prefer to think of himself as an enlightened modern man who would say it’s ok to cry, but he has his share of ingrained toxic masculinity despite himself. I don’t think I ever saw him tell my brother directly to “suck it up” or “act like a man,” but I do think after puberty or so he started responding to my brother’s tears with a sort of exasperation that he never directed at me.

The real difference was in how we were treated by our peers. By the time we got to high school, if I would cry at school, my peers (even ones who weren’t necessarily my friends) would probably ask what was wrong and try to help or provide comfort, or at least would leave me alone and give me time to pull myself together. When my brother cried at school, he was mocked. Relentlessly. Once bullies figured out that he cried easily, he was targeted and goaded specifically for it. They would find any little thing they could to get under his skin (right down to the most childish with rhyming nicknames) and troll him for fun. I wish I could say that I stood up for him, but I never did. I can tell myself this was because I didn’t see it happen in person, being two grades ahead, but I could have made an effort. Although, since he was almost certainly targeted at least in part for perceived failure to live up to masculine gender norms, I’m not sure if having an older sister try to come to the rescue would have helped or made things worse. At this point it’s years past, so I suppose speculation on what I could have or should have done is pretty moot at this point. Suffice it to say, this particular symptom which rarely did me any harm made my brother’s life a lot harder.

I may talk more about different perceptions of my brother’s and my ADHD symptoms in a later essay/ramble/entry/whatever, in particular how it affected out academic performances, but that’s for another time.

Again, I’m not sure if there are any greater conclusions here. There are a lot of ways emotional disregulation can present, and I really only addressed this one small aspect of excessive crying, but it is a good example of how even lesser-known ADHD symptoms can affect our lives in cascading ways, and the way people perceive those symptoms (due to various more visible identity factors) affects us as well. If you read all of this, thanks, and if you have any experiences you’d like to share with how your emotional disregulation has been perceived by others, I’d love to hear them. Until next time!

#actuallyadhd #adhd #actually adhd #emotional disregulation #privilege #white privilege #neurodivergence

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