#it’s actually just a reflection of my adhd diagnosis

[ms-demeanor]

You posted about adhd and I was hoping to follow up to clarify something. I’ve explained to my partner a million times about how the borderline-hoarding mess of his space is very mentally draining to me, and he understands but we’ve both essentially accepted he won’t clean his mess because he can’t because of his adhd. You’re saying he’s actually being a shit head?

This isn't necessarily an issue of him being a shithead, but it also isn't a sustainable situation. It's not good for you and there's a level of clutter that's probably not good for him either.

Large bastard is a lot more clutter-y than I am. The solution we've come to is trying to keep our messes at least isolated from one another; he can have his messes and I can have mine, but he can have those messes in his spaces, not all over the place. Sometimes those messes migrate, and that's when it's important for him to make the effort to rein them in rather than trying and failing to make a daily effort to keep our entire shared space tidy.

I think when you say "we've both essentially accepted he won't clean his mess" what I'm hearing is resignation; you're not happy about this but you don't know what to do so you've thrown up your hands and he feels helpless and unsure of what to do to improve the situation. This is the kind of "it's fine" that isn't really fine.

I think it would be worthwhile for you to each separately think about the mess and talk about it together. Are there areas that YOU *need* to have not-messy? Both for utility and your mental health? Are there areas where you can tolerate more mess than otherwise? Are there areas that are going to be harder for him to keep the mess out of than others? Are there things he doesn't *know* about cleaning up the mess?

I'm obviously a big "communication communication communication" person so I'm going to recommend a lot of talking about stuff, which is probably going to mean a lot of thinking about and interrogating stuff. I'm going to say "talk to him about why the mess bothers you" which means you also have to really articulate to yourself why the mess bothers you (for instance I'm not actually *bothered* by a messy kitchen, but I know it's going to reflect badly on us - and me specifically b/c of presumed gender roles - if someone pops by and the kitchen is a disaster, AND a messy kitchen is going to be harder to use). Genuinely, sometimes knowing *why* something is a problem might make it easier for someone with ADHD to do something. And it's not that he doesn't care that it upsets you, it's just that "Oh if I don't wash my breakfast dishes Anon won't have clear counterspace to make lunch" might be stickier in his brain (and less hard to look at emotionally) than "this thing I forget to do upsets my partner so I should do it."

For the record, I think that people with ADHD should read up on Demand Avoidance and see if it might explain some of the issues that they have in their day-to-day life; I've seen some really unfortunate situations with friends where trying to do things that their partner needed became the subject of demand avoidance. *I* have experienced negative outcomes of demand avoidance. The solution to that, however, isn't to stop making attempts to do the thing OR to simply try harder to do as they're asked/told (which reinforces the demand), it's to work on setting up a situation where the partners' needs are not interpreted as a demand. This is fuck-off difficult and requires a lot of patience and care and many attempts to succeed and will be different for each person and relationship.

(Also for the record demand avoidance isn't *super* strongly linked to ADHD and it's not a definitive symptom; like Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, it is something that occurs in some number of people with ADHD and can be a useful lens through which to examine various behaviors; you don't need to have DA or RSD to have ADHD, and having DA or RSD also doesn't invalidate your diagnosis; they're symptoms. For me, DA often feels like "if I don't look at it, it can't get me" - If I ignore all the messages I've got they aren't real and don't have real consequences so I'll just ignore my texts. If I don't look at the vendor email about the order, the problem with the order isn't real and it won't get added to my task list. If I don't look at the requests in my inbox I can't let people down when I don't do them. It's a self-protective coping mechanism but it's *maladaptive* and I can't just ignore the vendor email or all my texts. I need to work on a way of doing the stuff that I'm avoiding in a way that makes it less stressful and doesn't hurt the people relying on me. That takes a lot of effort, personal insight, trial and error, and )

But before I dive into specifics I want to be really really clear about one thing: sometimes people are simply incompatible. Sometimes one person has such a low tolerance for "mess" and the other person has such a high threshold for "mess" that it can't be reconciled. It sucks that this can end up being a thing that people break up over, but it is MUCH better to acknowledge incompatibility as early as possible instead of spending years and years building resentment.

There used to be a great forum called MiL's Anonymous that I spent a lot of time on. It had a lot of people in a lot of difficult situations struggling to get by and hold their relationships together. The question that was used as a litmus test to approach each situation was simple: If you knew today that everything about living with this person would be the same in five years, would you stay?

Because you can't control your partner. You can't control the future. You can only control yourself and your proximity to situations that are harmful to you. If you knew, 100%, that things wouldn't get better in five years, would you be okay with staying in this relationship? If the answer is "no," then that's that. Don't worry about questions of whether or not your boyfriend is a shithead, start the process of ending the relationship because there's a good chance the situation is going to be exactly the same in five years.

If the answer is "yes," and you'd stay in the relationship regardless of whether or not things changed, then it's time to take actions to improve your life within the context of the relationship.

(No judgement on that yes or no, btw. If you would hate living like this for another five years, and you would feel like you'd wasted your time and hadn't done the things you wanted to with your life, get out. Bail. Go. It will be better for you and better for your partner if you split instead of spending half a decade building resentments and and problems that you'll have to spend another half a decade healing from.)

Also, a note: you describe your boyfriend's mess as borderline hoarding - is the issue *mess* or is the issue *clutter*? I have friends who are very tidy, but whose homes are very cluttered. They like things, they have many things, they keep many things around, but their houses are always clean and well-dusted and orderly, just with a tremendous amount of *stuff.* I am addressing all of this as though the issue is mess, not clutter. If your boyfriend's situation is clutter (the space is busy and packed with things but it is functional and clean) and your issue isn't with *mess* (things out of place, things not having a place, things that need to be cleaned up gathering in stacks, falling behind on regular chores like laundry and dishes and taking out the trash) then you definitely need to assess whether or not you are compatible.

For instance here's a room that is messy but not cluttered compared to a room that is cluttered but not messy:

That first room is a *mess* but it would be very easy to clean up in under an hour. The second room is fairly tidy, but would take significant effort to pare down and declutter. BOTH of these can be difficult to live with but the second one is not dangerous or threatening to anyone's health. (The second one is QUITE cluttered and if every room in a house looks like this it can be overwhelming to live with; this is actually harder to deal with in a relationship than the first one in a lot of ways. I don't have a lot of advice for what to do if your partner is a high degree of tidy-but-cluttered because I don't actually think it's a problem or wrong to have thousands of books or bins full of lego or a million kitchen appliances as long as you have the space and can keep it safe and well-maintained; this is a really significant compatibility issue)

Okay, all that out of the way, here's the hard work.

Talk about this shit

Talk to your partner and define "mess." Make sure you are on the same page about what you mean when you're talking about what a messy room looks like versus what a tidy room looks like. Gather reference pictures. DRAW reference pictures.

Explain not just that the mess upsets you, but *why* and *how* it upsets you. In this context don't think of it as your boyfriend's mess, think of it as an unpleasant roommate. Discuss this using "I-statements". "When I have to pick up laundry all over the apartment, I feel like a parent more than a partner." "When there are piles of miniatures all over the table, I feel like I don't have anywhere to do things I'm interested in." "When there are dishes in the sink, I feel frustrated because I have to clean before I can feed myself."

Discuss, frankly and openly, whether he knows how to clean. I'm not trying to make excuses for him here but a lot of people with ADHD have a lot of stress and avoidance around cleaning because they spent a lot of time getting yelled at for not knowing how to clean properly.

Discuss your needs, be firm about what you require but willing to compromise. You *need* some spaces to be clean, and some spaces may be harder for him to keep clean than others. It may be MUCH harder for him to keep a bedroom tidy than it is to keep a kitchen tidy; if you need a clean and empty bedroom with everything put away and he simply cannot do that, that is a compatibility issue. But perhaps you need *your* side of the bedroom to be very orderly and can tolerate a moderate level of mess and clutter on his side. Maybe you're really really bothered by a messy kitchen, but it doesn't bug you if the dining table is covered with projects and papers. Figure out something more workable than "his mess goes everywhere and i live with it because he's incapable of cleaning" because he probably is not incapable of cleaning and you deserve to have places in your home that are comfortable for you.

Reduce friction for cleaning

Sometimes the problem isn't cleaning, the problem is the many many steps before cleaning, or not knowing where something should go when you are done cleaning. One of the absolute best things I've done for myself for cleaning my space is getting a broom holder and mounting the broom to the wall. Sweeping is now essentially thoughtless. I don't have to find the broom or pull it out from a pile of fans or go scrounging around for a dustpan it's right there on the wall, frictionless. So here are some ways to reduce the barriers to cleaning:

Make sure you and your partner both know how to use your cleaning supplies and know where those supplies are. When I switched dishwasher soap I had to re-show Large Bastard where I was storing it and how it was used, because to him what happened was the dishwasher tabs just vanished one day and he didn't know what I was putting in the machine or the process I used. He sometimes puts tools away in places that I can't see (he's more than a foot taller than me) so sometimes I can't get started on a maintenance project until he shows me where he put the battery pack for the drill.

Consider making a how-to chart to or having him make a how-to chart to keep someplace accessible so he can reference it while cleaning. Goblin.Tools Magic ToDo is great for this. Basically a lot of the time people with ADHD have trouble knowing what to do from step to step even if they've done something before, so having a step by step guide can make it easier (I have notebooks full of step-by-step guides for everything from paying for my tuition to removing licenses for my customers to weeding my yard)

Remove obstacles; don't keep cleaning chemicals in the garage in a box that's behind a stack of parts, keep them in the room you'll be cleaning. Don't keep the cleaning supplies that you use to clean the bathroom in the kitchen. Sometimes this means buying two bottles of bleach solution and two scrubbers and two sets of cleaning gloves but having fewer steps (fetch the windex, fetch the paper towels, fetch the gloves) is often the key to getting things done (open under-sink cabinet and grab windex, gloves, and paper towels that are there instead of in the kitchen).

This sort of overlaps with the next category, which is:

Create Dump Zones

One thing that I've found that seems very different between people with ADHD cleaning and neurotypical people cleaning is that neurotypical people are good at getting to a point where the cleaning is "done." They have checked off their tasks and they have finished and it is over. There are *SOME* chores that are like this (taking out the trash is a binary state, the trash has been taken out or it has not) and some chores are perpetual (horrid cursed dishes) but I think with people with ADHD, some chores that are binary for neurotypicals are actually perpetual chores. For instance "clean off the counter" is not a one and done for me. "Clean off the counter" may involve a three day reorganization project. "Clean off the counter" does not mean "wipe down the tile and put dishes away" it means assessing whether or not I need to make vegetable stock and bleaching three tea containers and reconsidering whether or not the sharps container should live somewhere else and going through the mail and figuring out what needs to be responded to and taking out the recycling and on and on and on.

We have had company at the house for the last two weeks, so I asked large bastard to clean off the dining room table, which is largely a project zone for him. Cleaning off the dining room table meant putting away his meds (and since he's a transplant patient that involves a 30 gallon rubbermade tote), throwing away some trash, and totally reorganizing his workshop. It also incidentally involved picking up a table from facebook marketplace and moving my plants, which has now involved moving my former plant rack outside (moving buckets, finding and organizing planters and gardening tools) and taking the former table to the thrift store (not done yet) and cleaning the rug that was under the former table. So "either the table is clean, or it isn't" isn't really true for us.

HOWEVER "hang on we can't eat until the table is clear so let's drive to Pico Rivera to get that console table right now" isn't a workable plan, so you create dumpzones as areas of holding between the start and the finish of the chore.

A dump zone can be a laundry basket. It can be a craft bin. It can be a back room or under your bed. It is a place to put things that you are going to deal with later because if you deal with them now it is going to derail the thing you are actually trying to do, which is set the table for dinner.

Dump zones are vital to cleaning with ADHD and I recommend them for day-to-day cleaning as well. The day-to-day dump zones might be more for you than for your boyfriend. For instance, Large Bastard works with bullets and he sheds bullets all over the house. I used to get stressed when I found bullets when I was cleaning because are these work bullets? Are these recreational bullets? Are they in testing? Do they need to be pulled? Do they go in the workshop or the office or the garage or does he need these today so they have to stay on the counter? And the answer now is "that's not my problem naughty bullets go in the jar." Which is perfectly sensible because he gets to say "mystery yarn goes in the bin" and "art supplies go in the bucket."

I feel helpless when cleaning a lot of the time. I'm frustrated and lost and I don't know where stuff goes and everything I pick up spins off into three projects in my head and every step feels like a wall to scale. Dump zones help me with that when there's pressure or a reason for cleaning beyond day to day home maintenance. People are coming over? The bedroom is a dump zone, I'll deal with that later. I'm just cleaning up because I need to? Okay I can find a permanent home for this new dish soap.

AS A VERY IMPORTANT COROLLARY TO THIS:

Active projects do not go in dump zones while you or your partner are cleaning. This may mean designating a project sanctuary area like a corner of the table or one particular chair in your main room where a project can be placed so as not to be disturbed. (if my current crochet project ends up in the yarn bin, that may mean that I don't pick the project up for another three months, it lives on the windowsill behind the couch because that's where it'll get worked on)

Do not put things away for your partner, put them in the dump zone for your partner. Your partner has to be the one to put their own stuff away in a way that works for them. I tend to find that this naturally puts a limit on the time stuff sits in the dump zone, because eventually you'll go "hey where's my thing?" and will put stuff away. If that doesn't happen, it's still generally better to have stuff in a dump zone than all over the home.

Do not decide you know what things go together from your partner's stuff and try to "put like things together." The neurotypical urge to put like things together is the mindkiller(j/k). You do not know which things are "similar" in your partner's organization schema and attempting to organize things on your own is going to end up with all of the things "organized" being functionally lost forever from your partner's perspective. Large Bastard's mom would do this and it was infuriating, she'd say "oh I put all the electronics stuff in one box" and she would mean soldering irons, transistors, ham radios, HDMI cables, and cellphone chargers. We are *still* going through boxes of stuff that she "tidied up" when he was hospitalized in 2020 and 2021.

To prevent the need for quite so many dump zones over time, you can work on setting up landing zones and "homes" for projects and tools.

Landing Zones

Landing zones are places where things go when you come inside from doing various things. Sometimes your landing zone only needs to be a tray for your wallet and keys, sometimes your landing zone needs to be a place to take off muddy boots and put a trowel and gloves down before you shower.

To make an effective landing zone, consider what behaviors you're trying to minimize and whether the people using it are ACTUALLY going to use it. For instance I was tired of the corner of my hearth getting cluttered with random junk so I hung up some hooks and put a shelf and a basket there and it became a really effective landing zone for my bag and keys and the mail, but it was VERY ineffective for Large Bastard because it's by a door that isn't the primary door he uses to enter the house. As a result I always know where my keys and bag are but he has trouble finding his keys and wallet. He tends to enter the house through our bedroom and has an overloaded valet next to the door and that's usually where his wallet ends up. Mounting a shelf to the wall above the valet and putting a basket and a hook on it will be a better place for his stuff to land. It's not that he's not using the first zone because he doesn't know that it's there, or because he doesn't care about lost time when I'm searching for my car keys after he borrows them, he's not using it because it's not by the door he uses. That's all.

I have a landing space for when I come in for gardening that's different than the one when I come in from grocery shopping. I have a landing space for when I walk into the dining room instead of the kitchen when I get home.

Landing spaces prevent stuff from piling up all over the place because they are a limited functional space that should be used frequently. Mail ONLY goes in the landing zone. If you have mystery mail or if you're not sure it's safe to toss, you put it in the landing zone. You can't let the mail get piled up too high or you won't have a space for your keys. You can't let the change in your wallet tray get too deep or your wallet is going to slide off, etc., but you also don't just put change on the coffee table or your nightstand because the landing zone is right there.

Homes for items are just what they sound like. They're the place the item goes. It lives there. My meds live on my nightstand. You would not believe how poorly I did with taking my meds on my vacation because they weren't on my nightstand. A while back large bastard lost one of his sets of sorted meds and we tore the house up looking for them because he couldn't find them in his nightstand, which is where they live. *I* found them in his nightstand because I emptied out the entire top drawer (he had only looked on the top layer) and found them underneath a radio and a hammock. Even though they were *hidden* they were in their home, so they were findable. I recently needed ink for an art class. Art supplies live in a dresser by my desk. Ink lives in the art bin or the top left drawer. The ink was not in either of these places (it was on a cabinet in the dining room behind a teacup) so it took me weeks to find it.

Sometimes the reason that ADHD spaces are so messy is because objects have been assigned homes in places that are visible and if they get moved they get lost. This is a genuinely difficult problem that requires a lot of effort to solve and can involve a lot of trial and error for creating a tidy living space. For some people, open shelving and visible storage might be a good solution. For some people, assigning a VERY clear home and inculcating that location by habit is the only way to clean up a space. For some people one very cluttered corner to at least isolate the chaos does the trick (for me and large bastard open shelving doesn't work because anything in one place for too long becomes invisible; that means that I rely on assigning things homes and large bastard relies on having contained chaos and a general idea of where to search but what that DOES NOT mean is that he is clean or tidy. His spaces look like an explosion. But he can mostly find his stuff and do what he needs to do and as long as that's limited to specific places in shared spaces I can live with it; the dining room table can be a disaster, the kitchen cannot).

People organize things differently. It often takes a while for neurotypical adults to settle into an organizational style that works for them and ADHD adults may need to settle into a new system every few months for it to continue working. The cleanup and declutter is most likely going to be a permanent project that is always going to demand some level of attention from everyone in a shared space, but "my ADHD means I can't do it" is not really going to fly. Maybe his ADHD means that he can't keep his space tidy, but it doesn't mean you can't move stuff from shared spaces into dump zones or that he can't do stuff around the house.

If he's insisting that his ADHD means that he can't clean it is possible that he's not being a shithead, he just feels helpless and doesn't know where to start and has adopted the belief that he's a useless piece of shit who can't even keep a tidy space like a grownup because he's internalized a lot of shitty attitudes (hello, my internal monologue about keeping a clean house). But it's also possible that he's just being a shithead.

It's something that's worthwhile to investigate with him. If he's unwilling to make an attempt, then he's being a shithead.

It is also not your responsibility to rehabilitate another person. If he wants to clean and it's something he feels bad about and needs some help and support with the way that someone might need help or support for learning to use a mobility aid, that is fine but you don't have to be the one who gives him that support if it's detrimental to your health, and you don't have to be the one to teach him that stuff if it's not something you're capable of. And if he is NOT interested in working on making your shared living space more accessible for you, that is not your suitcase to unpack and you just have to ask yourself the question from the start: would I stay with this person if I knew the situation was never going to change?

IDK, I'm sure a lot of this reads like "anon you must take on the emotional labor of training your partner to be an adult" but it's really meant to be more of a way of assessing yourself and your relationship. If you created landing zones do you think he'd use them? Would he get angry if you assigned a laundry basket as a dump zone for his stuff while you tidy the living room? Is living with him long-term going to be comfortable for you if nothing changes? Do you have enough of a shared definition of "mess" that you're at least in the ballpark for what counts as a clean house?

anyway good luck, and a reminder to folks that I'm compiling a bunch of adhd resources and other information on my personal website, ms-demeanor.com. It's coming along slowly but it will eventually include stuff like ADHD cleaning tips and how to tackle a hoard, so maybe keep your eye on that space.

[hannahyesss]

Last year was a remarkable one for me. I started a new career that I love and find challenging and rewarding. I fell in love with exercise and gave up feeling guilty about eating, and now I’m getting into the best shape of my life. I turned thirty. I jumped back into writing fanfiction and drawing fan art. I made new friends (and gave up on some friendships). And I’m poor as hell because I spent a month in Europe during the summer, and my school district hates teachers! But honestly, I’m so happy to be here. We’re already a week into the new year, and I can really sense that this is going to be a tough one, yet I feel ready to take it on.

Instead of a New Year’s Resolution, each year, I pick a word or theme. Every time I have a choice, I ask myself: which action would align with my overall values for the year? My theme last year was “Health.” Mental, physical, emotional, etc. I’d ask myself “Is this healthy for me?” Should I take a solo trip to Portugal? Should I eat pastries for breakfast? Should I go for a run? (The answer to all of these was yes.)

Here is how I embodied “Health” in 2023.

I had ADHD for nearly thirty years and didn’t know it. In that time, I graduated from high school and college and earned my graduate degree. When I reflect on how I achieved these things without the slightest idea I had a combination type ADHD, there are two things that stand out to me.

First, for most of my life, my anxiety has been debilitating and has kept me on track in a very rigid, uncomfortable way. Fearing that I would miss a deadline, my brain used to cycle through checks almost compulsively—which assignment is due? Did I pay my doctor’s bill? Do I have enough money in the bank? I was always at least twenty minutes early to everything because I was terrified of being late. I did my homework in class during work time because I didn’t want to bring it home and forget. (I was also very lucky that I took naturally to traditional education—I had good teachers in high school, but the curriculum was also very easy for me.)

Anxiety is an excellent mask for ADHD—but the cost is constant exhaustion.

Second, I have always gravitated towards jobs that keep me on my feet and running around solving problems. I managed a retail boutique for about five years which suited my ADHD very, very well. I was never involved with a task for more than fifteen minutes at a time. If I’m creating a book order and a customer walks in, I’ve got to stop my current task for a short amount of time and come back to it. I could always switch my brain very easily from one task to the next. Very stimulating! I’m a teacher now, and it’s basically the same thing.

By 2019, however, my anxiety had become so unmanageable that I couldn’t look at my bank account, I couldn’t keep my apartment clean, and I couldn’t even begin to think about doing laundry. I began working with my therapist specifically on getting my anxiety under control. It was really hard work! It involved identifying triggers and sitting with exceptionally uncomfortable feelings without judgment of myself. The story of getting a firm handle on anxiety is fairly long, so I’ll skip over several years of work to say that my anxiety is manageable now.

It took years, but my constant state of high energy anxiety has calmed significantly. While this is good, I had no idea what it was masking. ADHD symptoms began to take over my life. I cried all the time because I kept losing my phone or I set my keys down somewhere stupid or I was starting to be late to everything. Laundry was even more of a herculean task and keeping my apartment clean was a constant battle. Tackling anxiety with my therapist helped me see that untidiness is not a moral issue, but damn! I was still frustrated that I tripped over stuff or that my clothes were never clean! My therapist started squinting at me as these problems cropped up, and eventually, they were like, “These are fairly classic ADHD symptoms.”

I really, really resisted this diagnosis. I had been fine fine fine for my whole life. I have a Master’s degree! I’m a teacher! If it’s hard for me to do laundry, it’s just because I don’t like doing laundry. If it’s hard for me to brush my teeth twice a day, it just means I’m a person with poor hygiene. And the thing is, I was completely capable of doing these things. I did them all the time! It’s just that I felt so tired, and it was just a matter of forcing myself to get it done. After all, does anyone really like doing chores?

“But I don’t think you understand how much harder you’re working to do them,” my therapist argued.

“It’s hard for everyone,” I remember saying.

“Right, but for the ADHD brain, you have to use a lot more energy to get started and to get finished the things you don’t want to do.”

All right, fine. That might be true.

So I started to accept that I miiiiiight have ADHD. My mom was shocked when I told her and insisted she didn’t remember me bouncing around or having trouble keeping up with assignments in school. (Except that wasn’t…actually true. I had a gazillion late assignments in elementary school but then I switched from private school to public in sixth grade, and school became much easier. I could keep up because I was usually finished before other kids.)

But diagnosis seemed impossible. I didn’t want to go through the whole debacle of setting up a doctor’s appointment, calling insurance, finding someone to assess me, yada yada yada. (Side note: the cruelest thing to do to a person with undiagnosed ADHD is to make them jump through a lot of administrative hoops to get to their diagnosis. Which is exactly what you have to do.)

At the same time, my sister was going through her own journey of getting an ADHD diagnosis. However, when she began treatment for ADHD, I wasn’t particularly surprised because her behaviors looked much more like classic symptoms to me. She went on meds as soon as she could and told me that it just felt like she wasn’t so tired anymore. That she could just… do things. And like, yeah, speed can do that for a person. But honestly, I was thinking I could use some controlled substances to boost my brain energy if they’d give them to me.

By the time I was able to get in with a psychologist, I was already most of the way through my first year as a teacher. I couldn’t sit through curriculum planning meetings without getting lost in the conversation, I couldn’t keep my mind focused during my own lesson planning, and I couldn’t fucking grade papers for more than ten minutes at a time. Damn, though, I was really good at pretending I was a well-functioning adult. I can lie my ass off, and I am a fairly good actor, so I was terrified the psychologist was going to tell me that it wasn’t ADHD—I’m just lazy and dumb and I need to try harder.

Shockingly, this is not what he told me. He said I have combined type ADHD which means hyperactive and inattentive. Hilariously, he said since Covid started, he has seen a huge influx of teachers getting diagnosed. It’s a job that attracts ADHD types because you’re never doing the same thing for long and it’s just constant stimulation. (I was chatting with a fellow teacher friend about it who also has ADHD—two other teacher friends overheard our conversation, grimaced at each other, and muttered that they might need to make appointments with their doctors too…)

Pretty soon I started meds, and it was life-changing. I realized that I was using food for stimulation for most of my life which was why it was so fucking hard to keep a healthy weight. I can now run longer distances because I’m not sabotaging myself by constantly remembering how bored I am or how much I want to stop. Grading papers still sucks but I can now grade for a few hours at a time, take well-planned breaks, and then jump back into it. Although not officially designated a symptom of ADHD, my Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is much more manageable. I’m not constantly critiquing myself in the mirror anymore.

It’s truly been fascinating to see these changes in the last six months.

That’s not to say I’m cured or things are super great all the time. Laundry is still a struggle and I spent most of my weekend just lounging around the apartment (and called it rest). Last week, I increased my Adderall dosage to 15mg because what worked in the summer when I’m off work is NOT enough during the school year. In any case, I’ve been reflecting on how my diagnosis has helped me to see areas of growth in my life. Instead of “oh, I’m just an impulsive shopper,” it’s more like, “Oh, you are very susceptible to targeted ads. Let’s be cognizant of that and create a check system that helps you decide if you really need to buy that thing.”

I’ve learned that ADHD is NOT an excuse. I do NOT get to opt out hard things because of neurodivergence (I mean, sometimes yeah, I do, but not all the time, lol). Instead, it’s been a fun challenge to assess what I feel like I can’t do and figure out a way to trick my brain or work with my cute little weirdo brain to get shit done. I love puzzles! And damn if my brain isn’t one huge puzzle.

So here’s my advice: there is no such thing as laziness. If your problem is that you think you’re lazy, but since laziness doesn’t exist, it has to be something else. It could be ADHD—it could also be that you expect someone else to do the thing for you or that you’re depressed or that doing that thing you’re ignoring just isn’t something you care about.

Keep reflecting and remembering that you are not static.

Book recommendation: How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis

#2023 personal reflection #it’s actually just a reflection of my adhd diagnosis

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

#can we not do this to eachother :/ #I’m so careful to use caveats like I Believe In My Opinion That’s Just How I See It I’m Not All Knowing But…etc… very subjective :) #autistic thoughts #audhd problems #autistic borderline #adhd autistic #actually autistic #autistic trauma #autistic community #neurodivergent community #disability solidarity #autistic support needs #functioning labels #neurological disability #invisible disability #comorbid conditions #comorbidities #pro self diagnosis #self diagnosis is valid #late diagnosed autistic #autistic adult #autism in girls #autistic system #autistic memes #autistic vent #rants & reflections #mental health education #autistic things #autistic experiences #autistic culture

[punksocks]

Astrology Observations: No.25

*just based on my personal observations, only take what resonates

Omg my first degree theory observation was wrong Danial Kwan has moon at 18 degree, a Virgo degree ! (My bad y’all I’m learning). I’ll say that he had to get a hold of his mental health while in Covid and his adult adhd diagnosis and that influenced the writing of everything all at once (Imma learn this lol, more studying must be done)

Ok better degree theory lol, the degree of your Venus and/or mars can show placements you attract. My Venus is at a cancer degree and I’ve dated a l o t of people with Cancer placements (an experience lol)

A guy’s Lilith can show that his sort of femme fatale attraction (type of girl that overstimulates him, makes him feel enamored but is also his weakness.) His Lilith placement can describe this femme in more detail. For Aries, a go getter that takes no shit (I believe @zeldasnotes said Lilith in Aries in a man’s chart is a strong indicator that he’s a feminist and I totally agree.); For Sagittarius she’d be untethered and have a great sense of humor and may be outside of his culture. For Aquarius she’d be idealized as a manic pixie dream girl, like quirky in a way he could never figure out. let me know if you all would like a whole post on this !

Only outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) in your 1st can give you an extra ordinary appearance and make you stand out quite a bit.

Your mars conjunct to someone’s sun can make them feel competitive with you. Venus on the other hand can make you put the sun person on a sort of pedestal and can make the relationship feel like you’re a fan of the sun person. Moon to someone’s sun can feel more at home and at ease.

Men with water Venuses seem to be super monogamous or like incapable of monogamy (which is fine lol, but be ethical about it and establish boundaries and don’t cheat yo)

12th house synastry is sticky asl, as soon as you moved on someone just appears on your mind out of nowhere, lotta hidden energy all tied up together; 8th house synastry is really intense but it’s often hard to build something stable out of the intensity. 4th house feels like home, but as someone with Uranus over their 4th, I associate this synastry with being unpredictable and chaotic in familiar way. 5th and 11th house synastry tends to be good long term. 5th house means you feel fun and creative and always excited together. And 11th house will mean that there’s a feeling of friendship underneath the passion that usually sustains the connection imo.

For all of the seriousness associated with Capricorn placements (especially suns) often focus on a lot on whimsy in their creative works, like it’s the outlet for a lot of their hidden optimism (Hayao Miyazaki, Nobuhiko Obayashi the director of Hausu).

Ok ok I know Scorpio risings are known for intense, bedroom eyes and their overwhelming s*x appeal and making suitors flee because they’re so intimidated etc etc… but quietly I think our biggest weapon that people don’t see coming is our sense of humor. (Honest to god I was thinking of how funny Hugh Grant is even though he doesn’t need to be bc he’s been so handsome this whole time lol. He always puts in the effort into that comedic timing) (Also people still think if you’re hot and intense you can’t be funny so it defuses some of the tension pretty well imo)

I feel like Virgo placements always seem to think they feel boring even though they’re like very knowledgeable and compelling in their own right (I’m getting all reflective and remember when like Virgo moons/mars would always ask if they’re being boring or complain about being boring but they tend to be good conversationalists when they allow themselves to analyze things so deeply)

I think cancers are actually the most defensive sign, naturally. I want to say they have this in common with their sister sign bc Capricorns are defensive and don’t like to show “weakness”. But the way that underdeveloped cancers (can) play the victim when scrutinized is different. (Like Capricorns do that earth sign thing where they use their perception to make you feel like you’re wrong, and they want to be seen as the authority not the victim). Where cancer is in your chart could show where you’re especially guarded and trying to protect your sensitivity.

To me Jupiter conjunct south node means you’ll reap benefits of good karma from a past life (or the effects of bad karma will be a lot in this lifetime but I saw this in obama’s chart and it’s a benefic planet so the first thing is what I thought of lol, he’s not a good guy but becoming the first black president of the us seems like a past life power play imo)

#sorry been super busy lately lol #but I’m back #astro observations #astro notes #astroblr #astro community #astrology #lilith astrology #venus #mars #8th house #12th house #5th house #4th house #11th house #Capricorn #cancer #Virgo #scorpio rising

[luminarai]

I’m going to the last appointment of my adhd diagnosis evaluation tomorrow and I am Big Anxious, esp bc the interview/question section was so heavily geared towards like. Stereotypical ‘hyperactive boy’ behaviours ya know?

And obv we should be at a point where the actual evaluation is a reflection of the knowledge we’ve gained in the field re: women with adhd but part of me is so worried that they’ll just go ‘welp you don’t fit the Official Questions so you’re on your own byeeee 🙂’

#cecil blogs her life #mental health

[katboykirby]

Autistic Beel is very real to me personally, as an autistic person (special interest, not very expressionate, etc). I also very much agree with the Satan and Levi headcanons too.

Oh this is interesting because I don't think I've heard about an autistic! Beel HC before? Usually (in my experience anyway) it's autistic! Levi and very very occasionally autistic! Satan

Now, full disclosure that I'm not autistic myself, so any information I'm familiar with comes from research + the experiences of my irl partner, who got his autism diagnosis as an adult. (I do have ADHD and I know that there's some relation/overlap there, but I'd still trust the words and experiences of actual autistic people over my own)

And I can definitely see some aspects of autism in Beel! Like you said, he doesn't tend to show much of any particularly strong emotions, at least not openly or on the surface - he tends to keep a fairly flat expression (and his usual frown could be interpreted as the classic neurodivergent "resting bitch face" aha) and his voice clips reflect this as well - he's definitely not as affective as say, Mammon or Asmo! Beel is a lot more quiet than his brothers, on average. He's not really very emotive or expressive outside of specific or extreme situations. Although, I don't tend to go for the romantic options with him or read his personal Devilgram stories all that often (since I'm a Satanfucker) but I'm aware that he's usually more emotive in romantic moments with MC, or when things get tense/dramatic with his family.

Speaking of which, something that we do occasionally see is Beel losing his temper and becoming very angry - to the point that he loses control of himself and goes on rampages. The most significant examples of this in the main story would be Lessons 4 and 5 of the original game, when he flies into a rage over some custard and ends up destroying half of MC's room; and the whole plotline in Nightbringer revolving around Beel's rampage at the royal castle that almost resulted in Diavolo having to lock him up because of how much destruction he caused. I know that "autism rage" is pretty negatively stereotyped (unfairly so, in my opinion) but anger is definitely a real struggle for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The whole food thing is definitely interesting in this context as well (and I assume this is what you meant by "special interest?" Lmk if I'm wrong) because Beel is the complete opposite of the common autism stereotypes when it comes to food! We often see the idea of autistic individuals having a very limited scope of foods that they actually enjoy, because things like texture, flavour, and sensation are all very different and experienced in a different way than neurotypicals. Autistic individuals are stereotyped as "picky eaters" because it's common for them to have very specific "safe foods" and/or not enjoy very many exotic or strong flavours. Beel definitely does not have a problem with this, lmao. And we know that his love/obsession with all foods isn't something that came about just when he was made the Avatar of Gluttony, since he was a big food lover as an angel as well (though his eating habits, admittedly, weren't as extreme back then.) Interestingly, a lot of research shows that people with autism are more likely to struggle with binge eating disorder, which has some intriguing implications for Beelzebub 👀

It's entirely possible that exercise & working out and/or sports like Fangol could be special interests for him as well! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Beel has mentioned or alluded to feeling restless if he doesn't get at least one workout in every day, like he doesn't feel that his day is "complete" if he hasn't done his exercise routines. This could suggest that he experiences the common autism symptoms around adherence to routines and inflexibility when it comes to changing up his usual habits and activities 🤔

This reply has actually become pretty long, so I'll just stop myself here before I get carried away even further 😅

Overall, I think that there's definitely merit to autistic! Beel HCs, and I'm sure that people who are actually autistic and/or are big fans of Beel himself (and who would have read far more of his in-game content than I have, like his Devilgrams) would be able to go into even more detail than I have!

#I love Beel so much #even though he isn't a romance interest to me personally I have a HUGE amount of platonic/familial love for him #he's a great character who is so underrated and unfairly overlooked #justice for my boy! #anyway #obey me #obey me nightbringer #omswd #obey me beel #obey me beelzebub #beelzebub obey me #beel obey me #obey me hcs #obey me headcanons #obey me theory

[skaldish]

sorry for the incovinience, but I read this, and as neurodivergent medical student I'm very curious. Do you have any resources or recommend (websites,books,etc) about neurodiversity from a neurology,psychiatry pov? (especially from a neurodivergent health professional or science expert) Because it so hard to found those (mainly bc the missinformation and ableism), most books in my college's library are not updated :(.

not to mention some doctors have said some wild ableist shit (and even some medical students) :(

I don't have much, but I have directions I can point you towards. (I need to update it, but any sources I do find generally go on my brain blog @prefrontal-bastard.)

First, I highly reccomend the Neuroclastic website for autistic perspectives. This website is by and for autistic folks and features a multitude of people with different expertise and backgrounds, including scientists. I imagine any pertinent developments in our understanding of neurodiversity would probably appear on that website.

I also know the AIR Network Model's website has scientific articles on trauma and dissociation, so I recommend looking into them too.

I'd also look into the MNRI PTSD Recovery Protocol by Svetlana Masgutova, Ph.D. I'm not sure if she's neurodivergent herself, but I would hardly be surprised if she is.

I recommend this because the studies behind her protocol reveal some extremely telling things about neurodiversity and its relationship with trauma. I have one of her books and it goes into the entire neuroscience and testing behind it, but unfortunately copyright laws means I can't, like...share the charts. This approach seems to be the direction the science is taking us on regarding neurodiversity though, so it might be the "in" you're looking for in terms of a non-ableist medical framework.

(The breakdown though, because this shit's fascinating:

Traumatic stressors can cause our nervous systems to blow like overloaded circuits. This causes our primitive reflexes [patterns of movements that reflect the core operating system of mindbody interface] to re-emerge, or to fail to integrate if the trauma was during babyhood.

Evidently, retaining 35% or more of the known reflex patterns produces the symptoms associated with things like sensory processing disorder, autism, ADHD, cerebral palsy, anxiety, or emotional dysregulation. It even contributes to depression and dyslexia.

Dysregulated reflexes can impact damn near anything: cognition, attention, coordination, disposition, emotional reactions, visual /auditory / spacial perception, pain perception and threshold, body growth, mood, and even the function of our digestive and immune systems.

From what I understand, certain primitive reflexes correlate with certain disorders. Apparently the Startle Reflex / Fear Paralysis Reflex and Moro Reflex are highly correlated with Autism diagnosis. Other reflexes potentially contribute to it since this is not a "rigid categories" thing, but those are the two her book is citing in particular here.

You can actually re-integrate these reflexes with exercises, which initially thought was fucking bogus until I tried it and suddenly could perceive and conceptualize things I didn't realize I couldn't before, as well as perceive parts of my body I didn't realize I couldn't perceive before [like my spine].

You can actually find integration exercises on youtube. It's an Occupational Therapy thing, but since it's new and emerging it's not something the average OT knows how to do yet, I'm afraid.

Also, important note: Some reflexes take longer to integrate, others don't. They might have to be integrated in a certain sequence depending on which ones are retained, but I'm not sure what all the sequences are.

Rule of thumb for anyone reading this: If the internal experience of "being you" sucks ass in any way, check your primitive reflexes. It ain't a curse and it ain't the devil, you might just need recalibrating.)

Hope this helps!

#answered #brain things

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi MBTI-notes. INFJ here. Many thanks for your tremendous insights. Your analysis of unhealthy INFJ’s has been absolutely spot on for me. I can see that I can be incredibly, sometimes laughably, unrealistic, have great difficulty being present, and alternate between too cynical and too trusting.

However, despite knowing about the INFJ weaknesses for several years now thanks to your blog, I keep making these mistakes. Some feel harder to change than others - like the difficulty focusing that, in my case, seems similar to ADHD.

I am trying a variety of things including finding the right mentors to bring me back to reality and hold me accountable, DBT, and improvements to basic physical self-care like sleep. I might also consider getting on medications for bipolar I (a diagnosis I have received due to two manic episodes, although they’re not sure if I need to be on meds) or ADHD.

In your experience, what is necessary to successfully close the gap between simply knowing about my problematic patterns and actually changing them? I am really hoping that improvements in emotional intelligence via DBT will close the gap, and also am trying to be more systematic about maintaining and improving my interpersonal relationships. Maybe it will be a combination of many small things like mastering physical health and routines, realistic goals, the right mentors, discipline, etc.

(From the INFJ who mentioned bipolar I). As an addendum, I just wanted to mention that the two episodes definitely involved some psychotic thoughts and behavior, but it's unclear if they fit a traditional manic episode, as I've not experienced periods of little sleep but high energy. It’s quite possible that BPD is a better explanation due to a connection in both cases with a romantic interest. I just wanted to mention this in case it impacted your response at all.

----------------------

"Knowing" about problems means being in possession of the facts, so it comes mainly through observation and gathering information. A lot of people go through life not knowing how problematic their thinking/behavior really is until they get critical feedback or generate very negative consequences. Even then, perhaps they still can't admit to having a problem and they use defense mechanisms such as denial to avoid confronting the truth. Getting through these defenses can be an arduous process. Even though knowing is really only the first step, it can already be quite a difficult step.

If knowing is only the first step, it means it's not enough. More is required. Knowing is not the same as "understanding". Understanding comes mainly through developing self-awareness, which involves the capacity to perceive and evaluate oneself accurately and objectively. Self-awareness can be described as low/high or shallow/deep. To improve self-awareness usually involves going inward, through reflection and introspection, to discover the roots and mechanisms behind psychological issues.

If knowing is about grasping the facts, understanding is about being able to provide a proper explanation of the facts. For example, a lot of people feel low self-confidence very acutely but they have no idea about how it came to pass or why they suffer. When you don't understand your thinking/behavior, it means you don't know the causes of it, the motivations behind it, or the factors that contributed to its manifestation.

That said, when people know but don't understand their problem, they are still capable of some small self-improvement. Generally speaking, they'll seek out advice from those in the know and try to discover some common rules, methods, or procedures for dealing with the problem, which allows them to become more functional in daily life. However, while they can improve a bit, their growth tends to be limited because it remains unclear whether the solution they've found is the correct one. Perhaps they feel some relief or progress, but it doesn't really seem long-lasting. Why? Knowing without understanding means every "fix" you try is basically blind and random experimentation. If something works for awhile, you don't understand why. If something doesn't work, you don't understand what went wrong. This is one reason why self-help methods have a high rate of failure; they simply don't get deep enough into the problem, so self-awareness remains too low.

Using the example of low self-confidence to illustrate, different people suffer for different reasons. For Person A, perhaps it's because of fear of failure that creates too much anxiety to feel confident. For Person B, perhaps it's because they lack knowledge and skill, so they feel too incompetent to approach tasks confidently. Person B needs to improve their knowledge and skill through learning and practice in order to feel more confident. But this remedy isn't going to work for Person A. Regardless of how knowledgeable or skilled Person A is, they will continue to fear failure, because it is an entirely separate issue that remains unaddressed by Person B's remedy. If you were looking to the above two cases for inspiration, you wouldn't get very far without knowing YOUR individual reasons for suffering low self-confidence.

It sounds like you are still in the stage of knowing - gathering the facts about your issues in order to name/label them correctly. It's good you've gotten some practical advice for managing your issues. Using the INFJ functional stack to frame the issues also seems to have been helpful for improving your self-awareness. However, what I'm still not seeing is true understanding. You haven't yet discovered the underlying causes/mechanisms and aren't able to provide an accurate and objective explanation of why you suffer from these issues. In short, it's just harder to solve a problem when you don't know the cause or how it arose.

This is probably one reason why you're running into difficulty with getting clear official diagnoses. People often view an official diagnosis as "the answer", but oftentimes the label is just a way to describe a particular set of symptoms. It doesn't reveal enough about what's really going on underneath the surface. The process of talk therapy ought to be aimed at making better sense of the symptoms, so it's important to pair any pharmaceutical interventions with talk therapy.

I never want to discourage people from self-improvement. I appreciate your willingness to seek out answers. You asked me what might be lacking in your approach and I've given you my best guess. You've focused a lot on "doing" and "following", implementing some commonsense strategies like physical self-care and learning from good mentors. This is certainly a step in the right direction. But from the perspective of analytical psychology, you haven't done enough to go within to understand your own individual psyche. It is likely that working on your emotional intelligence through DBT will deepen your self-awareness. But, at this early stage, there is no way for me to predict if it will "close the gap". If you care about understanding yourself better, be willing to take your therapist's reflections and inquiries as deep as you can go with them.

#infj #knowing #understanding #development #growth #mental health #self awareness #self help #therapy #psychology #ask

[iplaywithstring]

In 2020 my daughter (then 13) told me she had been looking at some stuff and she thought she might have ADHD. I had not considered this possibility before she brought it up, but with about 5 minutes of reflection, it made sense. We were already running on the assumption that my husband (her dad) has ADHD and our home had a lot of adhd-friendly ways of doing life and honestly some signs (time blindness, fidgeting, hobby-hopping, distraction) were overlooked.

Being that it was 2020, everything was slowed down and backed up, but being people with privilege, we were able to pay for a private psychologist to do a full assessment. It took about 3 months and ended up with a generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis and an evaluation that boiled down to "she probably has ADHD but she does really well in school so deal with the anxiety first and see if that fixes things". Took that to our GP, who basically said "I don't know what to do with this" and prescribed Prozac, which increased her anxiety so we stopped it and asked for a referral to a psychiatrist.

It took almost 18 months to get the appointment - meanwhile she had no supports, no treatment, and no follow up from her GP. At that appointment, the Dr revised her diagnosis - she absolutely has ADHD, but she's good at school, so no need to treat it. However, because she didn't respond well to the prozac and she "gets really sad sometimes" (that was actually the question he asked, no probing, or clarifying, just "do you feel really sad sometimes", to a 15 year old!), prescribed a mood stabilizer because she might have a mood disorder (bi-polar disorder). My husband (who was there for the appointment - I wasn't able to go) was so shocked and confused he just said thank you and left.

We did not fill the prescription for the mood stabilizer. No issues with taking medication when needed, but she showed no signs of excessive mood swings - she had also just had her first break up a couple weeks before the appointment. While waiting for the follow up (where I planned to advocate for treatment for the actual thing he said she had, not the theoretical maybe thing she might struggle with) I saw ads for a private clinic specifically for ADHD diagnosis and treatment. I was nervous - I've got medical trauma (it comes with chronic illness) and did not want to be seen as shopping around for pills for my kid, or ignoring medical advice, or any of the other things that would make getting her treatment more difficult.

So my husband went first - made an appointment, filled out the forms, got a diagnosis and treatment plan. It was so easy and affirming and validating for him, and since starting the treatment he's been so relaxed! He might also be able to stop his anxiety meds (he also has a GAD diagnosis, which might be wrong based on how inattentive type ADHD works).

My daughter had her first appointment this week, it felt so good. She was heard and understood. Her experience and struggles weren't overlooked. She was validated. The NP doing the appointment even mentioned how it's harder for intelligent kids to get diagnosed because they are able to mask so well and too many people just look at school performance. She has a follow up next week to go over a treatment plan. The NP even said she would look at medications not in pill form as my daughter has issues swallowing pills.

I can't express how excited I am. She's 16 now, in grade 11, and things have been so much harder on her in the last year. I'm hopeful that between the treatment plan and coaching, the transition to university will be gentle and she won't face the same breakdown so many people (especially women) with ADHD go through in early adulthood. I'm hopeful this will help her to see her strengths and to not feel so overwhelmed and broken most of the time.

It took far too long and was much more difficult (and expensive!!!!) than it should have been to get to this point, but I am so glad we have a plan now and that she feels good about it!

#this is my life #adhd #parenting

[duck-in-a-thrift-store]

Personal rant bc we haven't gotten my official results yet but we did get a very stressful phone call about it, and because adhd has been kicking my ass lately. This is going to be long and rambly and all over the place, and if you're anti self-dx, I wouldn't suggest reading further (or interacting with me in general). It also sort of becomes just me psychoanalyzing my own behavior and infodumping about it

-------------------------------------------------------

For context, I'm autistic and adhd, and I went and talked to a psychologist a couple weeks ago and had some testing done

Personally, I don't really feel the need to have an official diagnosis for autism. I'm confident in my informed self-diagnosis (technically it was actually my parents who first suggested I might be autistic but I've learned a lot about it since then and now I'm pretty sure I'm more convinced than they are) and I just don't think a doctor's note will do much for me (totally understand and support anyone who does want to get diagnosed tho). Adhd however is another story. If I want meds that will actually work and accommodations with my school, they need proof, and as things are I am desperate for some help.

So the appointment I had a couple weeks ago was supposed to be for adhd testing, but apparently he also lowkey tested me for autism while we were there. Which like, fine, whatever, it would be sort of nice to have that validated I guess, but when we checked back in with him on the phone earlier this week he started using outdated and problematic terms like high-functioning and aspergers and I'll just say that it did not exactly inspire confidence

But that can of worms aside, let me get back to (mostly) adhd related ranting

I feel like there could be an essay about how the diagnostic process for adhd is flawed and doesn't work all that well for people who have an internalized notion that their worth as a person is dependent on their academic success and task performance and therefore spent their childhood and adolescence funneling all their efforts time and attention into school and generally being seen as a good well-behaved bright kid out of desperation to have value (and it worked- I've always made good grades, but what people don't see is the days, weeks, months of paralyzed procrastination, the anxiety-fueled mad rush in the end to get things done late, and the grace I'm inexplicably shown every time, without which my grades would be much worse)

I'm scared, that I'm going to be determined "too high functioning" to be diagnosed even though I'm currently doing basically nothing with my life outside of college and yet I'm technically failing like half of my classes right now, that they're going to say "well the signs weren't there when you were younger" even though there's a variety of explanations for why that might be, not the least of which being the fact that for some folks with both autism and adhd the traits of the two have a tendency to "hide" one another

Apparently he also ran an iq test on me, and he broke down the 5 scores to us; I scored in the upper average/above average bracket in all but the 4th, processing speed, in which I'm below average. And like yeah, I'm well aware that I'm slow, but I guess it's official now-

Anyway, my main point with the iq thing was that while he was telling us about my high scores in the first 3 areas, I'm sitting here getting more and more uneasy, bc I'm like yeah sure I'm intelligent or whatever but it isn't worth shit if I can't motivate myself to actually do anything with that potential, and the conditions under which I was tested just don't reflect my day to day life closely enough to give an accurate reading, in my opinion.

Basically I'm afraid this guy is going to look at the results of some tests- tests which I was really focused on bc of the intrinsic fear of failure that plagues my existence (even though rationally I know you can't fail a psychological evaluation) and bc I know it's a bitch of a process to even get tested in the first place and I wasn't going to waste the opportunity goddammit-

That he's going to look at them and decide that I'm "too smart" to have a learning disability, when, again, all the brains in the world wouldn't do me any good if I

1) don't have the ability to self-motivate and direct them at what I need to be working on, even if I've been beating myself up about that pile of homework or my disaster of a room for weeks or even months, and

2) have such a loose grasp on the concept of time and priorities that I have on multiple occasions found myself pulling all-nighters on personal projects or reading for pleasure or scrolling on my phone only to realize oh shit I have to get up for school in like two hours, oh fuck, I'm going to be exhausted all day, what happened to "let's go to sleep early this time, I'll just do this for like 5 more minutes and then call it a night"

or realize after one of those all-nighters that what was actually a period of about 10 hours feels more like 10 minutes to me ("man wasn't I literally just here to get dinner" the next morning, passing the caf on my way to class on exactly 0 hours of sleep and still having managed not to get any of my actual class work done in all that time)

And also just that tendency in itself is significant, to get so deeply hooked on something once it does manage to get my attention, that I often feel like I can't stop until outside forces demand it- staying up until 4am on a school night painting my phone case and texting my crush (14 or 15), making bracelet after bracelet at the kitchen table at ungodly hours of the night because I couldn't sleep and now that I'm on a roll I don't want to break the momentum (18, a few months ago), throwing horrific amounts of time at reading fanfiction of whatever series currently has my interest when I have so much work that needs to get done if I want to have a chance at passing my courses this semester (18, basically present), making a last minute birthday present for my aunt and being so caught up in the rush and the craft of what I was working on that I ignored my body's needs until I ended up pissing myself (12), etc

The fact that I've been meaning to catch up with my high school friends for weeks or months, literally something as simple as a "how have yall been" in the group chat, yet for some reason I still haven't gotten around to it

The fact that for all my alleged intelligence I still haven't learned to ride a bike or drive a car or apply for a job or develop a work-life balance or play any of the instruments I want to or have a thriving social life or feel like a person (I think these are more autism-related but I'm throwing them in anyway)

The fact that minor (or even just mistakenly perceived) disapproval or judgment or teasing or having a text left on read can send me spiraling into anxiety and convinced that everyone hates me and that I'm worthless or obnoxious or stupid (rejection sensitivity is a bitch)

The fact that when I try to read I have to make a constant conscious effort not to jump ahead and all over the place and I often have to reread the same passage multiple times to understand it because I realize that I wasn't actually paying attention the first couple of times, my mind elsewhere and my eyes wandering

I know even if I do get diagnosed they'll say it's inattentive, not hyperactive or combined, because the majority of my hyperactivity is either fairly subtle movements (because I'm socially anxious and clumsy and don't want to draw attention to myself or run the risk of breaking or disturbing something) or just straight up in my head. Like sure I'm not a nine year old boy who can't sit still in class and is constantly bouncing around all over the place and getting into trouble and driving his parents and teachers crazy (bc being seen as annoying and unruly by authority figures would have broken me), but there's always so much noise in my brain, it's always talking or playing music in the background or thinking about the 47 different projects I need to be working on and the media it wants to be engaging with instead and the 1000s of things there are to worry about in a day; sometimes I'll get stuck in a loop where I'm mentally repeating a word or phrase over and over and over again until I feel like I'm going crazy

All of this is stuff that this guy doesn't see, and that worries me when it comes to the validity of his assessment

But basically, what I'm trying to say is, I swear to god if the people around me don't believe that there's clearly something not neurotypical going on here I'm going to fucking riot

And, ranting aside, I want to end this post with a note to all my fellow neurodiverse folks who are waiting for answers or treatment or validation or support or whatever.

I feel you. Hang in there. You have my well wishes in your endeavors. And remember, it's ok to be happy with or proud of who you are and what makes you different, it's ok to embrace your neurodiversity while also acknowledging how difficult it can be to live with and the fact that you might need extra time or support with things that seem to come easily to other people. It's ok to admit that it's fucking hard sometimes, and it's ok to ask for help. Take care, mates

#please feel free to peer review me #duck rants #duck's thoughts #adhd #autism #neurodiversity #adhd test #adhd assessment #gifted kid burnout #neurodivergent #psychoanalysis #psychology #brains are weird #executive dysfunction #rejection sensitive dysphoria #time blindness #hyperfixation #anxiety #info dump #<- about myself

[greens-spilled-tea]

Heyo, I’m Green from the @reimeichan system. Got tired of holding back my syscourse takes from our DID blog so I decided to make my own so I can ramble to my heart’s content. May let the others in the system use this blog if they wanna also ramble about syscourse shit (Gray especially seems to enjoy hijacking my blog like the know-it-all he is), but it’ll mainly be me.

20+ years old, he/him, Chinese American, polyamorous and gay. Diagnosed with DID and ADHD.

No DNI, feel free to talk to me if you wanna. If you respect me, then I will respect you.

Syscourse-specific stances underneath the read more. Note that these are my specific stances and are not a reflection of the system as a whole.

What’s my syscourse stance? - I am syscourse-annoyed. That is my official stance. Wording stolen shamelessly from @system-of-a-feather lol

Do I believe in endogenic plurality? - I honestly do not care if endogenic plurality exist or not. You can describe your experiences however you want. Just don’t go around trying to demedicalize CDDs in your crusade to have endogenic plurality recognized by others.

Do I support tulpamancy? - I believe it to be a bastardized version of a Tibetan Buddhist practice that many so-called tulpamancers do not actually understand or respect. I am fine with created alters or headmates, so long as you do not call them tulpas. I’m a big proponent of changing the terms “tulpa” and “tulpamancy” and related terms as I find them to be orientalist and racist.

Do I think CDDs can be formed without trauma? - There is a strong correlation between trauma and the development of CDDs to the point where if you have a CDD, you almost definitely also have childhood trauma. I don’t like dealing in absolutes and like to be open-minded to the possibility that CDDs may be able to form outside of childhood trauma but the research has not yet shown that. However, oftentimes people who are diagnosed with CDDs may not remember their childhood nor their traumas, and trying to get people to recall those memories is irresponsible at best and likely incredibly damaging.

Opinions on alters using names from a culture that is not their own? - I cannot speak for all cultures. My answer here is not going to cover everything I believe about this point. I think alters may internally be able to use whatever name they feel comfortable with; many times an alter may form or split with a name (ie. introjecting a fictional character) with a name from another culture. However, they should be able to recognize that, if the body is not of that culture, then they are also not of that culture, and it may be prudent to choose a different name (like a nickname) to go by when talking to other people.

Do I support self-diagnosis? - To a certain extent. I think you should always go into self-diagnosis with an open mind that your diagnosis may be incorrect, but if the tools and resources you found for that diagnosis is helping you and you’ve done a lot of research into the matter, including looking at differential diagnosis, then so long as you are being responsible then it’s fine. Not everyone has the luxury to be able to get properly diagnosed. That being said, even diagnosis has its own issues as being diagnosed is, at least in the US, mainly used for insurance purposes and to make sure the patient gets the care they need. Whether someone is diagnosed or not doesn’t make their disorder any more or less real. I think we should focus less on diagnosis and more on people’s symptomology, including symptoms outside of the presence of alters.

Language I prefer to use when talking about alters, headmates, parts, etc. - I alternate between parts and people language as they are simply interchangeable for me. Headmates feels weird to me in a way I cannot put my finger on but I will not be upset if you use it for my system. In general I’m pretty flexible with whatever words people use to refer to the members of their system and I don’t really care what people use for my system.

Language I prefer to use when talking about systems, a collection of people inside one brain, etc. - I tend to call myself “someone with DID”. I don’t prefer the term “system” but I will used it for communicative purposes. I’m very bad about using people’s preferred terminology here and I’m trying to change that, but I will absolutely slip up on accident and I apologize ahead of time. I do not mind people pointing it out to me so long as you’re not being an asshole about it.

#pinned #by green #reimeichan

[lady-laureline]

There's been a lot of discussion about the validity of neurodivergent self-diagnosis, including a fair bit of fuss about the notion that there is a whole swathe of people faking their disability for attention, so I think it's a great time to dissect a few fun topics such as representation, intersectionality, prejudice and privilege (this post is unapologetically long).

Tl;dr for the people at the back: cracking down on perceived fakes has unintended consequences. If you don't know what you're talking about, what is "believable" is not for you to decide.

×××

To those with concerns, a few questions. What was your first encounter with disability? A joke in a movie, perhaps, or an insult you heard at school?

Incidentally, did you know the brain uses your first impression as the foundation for your understanding of any concept? This can be tricky to reflect on (we all have a built-in resistance to changing our minds), but if you are comparing the people you see online to Rain Man you might have some catching up to do.

There's this insidious notion of being "reasonably disabled". People tend to go for an all-or-nothing dichotomy without really thinking about it, which is detrimental to literally everyone in between. Personally, I think it has something to do with our discomfort around being bad at something. As if being blind was somehow more legitimate than having poor eyesight - it sounds ridiculous, but tell me there isn't a part of you that thinks this way.

Likewise, there are plenty of neurodivergent folk that are able to function in society, but will not quite match up to the neurotypical standard in certain contexts, whether we lack the performance skills or just have a different taste in things. Y'all seem to be having difficulties translating a theoretical understanding of this into not cringing like we're bringing down the average grade.

×

Okay, but aren't we talking about a medical diagnosis? Surely that should be left to the professionals? Yes & no. Hope you don't mind that I explain with the help of anecdotal evidence.

I am at a point where I am feeling pretty good about how I identify, i.e. officially diagnosed with adhd, and self-diagnosed as autistic. Through a combination of digging through online resources and a whole lot of recuperation, I've been able to put many of the struggles I was fighting blind with into a framework I am able to understand. I feel more like a person than I ever have in my life, and that, for me, is the greatest benefit of a diagnosis, official or not.

While I am certainly not ruling out seeking a doctor's confirmation of my autism at some point, there is some trepidation involved.

A non-trivial part of this is my adhd diagnosis experience. This was during the pandemic, I was just coming to terms with being burnt out and was so so ready to finally get some answers as to why. An immigrant (read: used to paying for healthcare) living in the UK, I naturally opted to seek guidance and support from the National Healthcare Service at this vulnerable time in my life. If you're familiar with the NHS, you can probably guess how it went to bother this already overwhelmed and underfunded organisation that definitely did not want to deal with my trauma dumping.

After being coerced to try an SSRI "to find out what's under all that anxiety" and having a terrible time with it, plus feeling legitimately gaslight in my pursuit of getting to the bottom of what it would actually take to get approved for an assessment, I found out about my right to choose and swiftly obtained both my diagnosis and prescription via Psychiatry UK, a private organisation.*

A decidedly shitty experience overall, but I ended up with a lot of useful insight into navigating the bureaucracy, and I can safely say that taking (the right) medication has helped a lot with symptom management, and thus, life in general.

×

Now, autism has been in the public eye much longer than adhd and has accumulated more research over the years, but its implementation is far from adequate, especially for autistic adults. Some of the studies that shaped the understanding of doctors practicing today betray the derogatory and/or infantilising beliefs of doctors of the past.

So I have concerns about the toll another clinical runaround might have on my mental health. It would take a lot of work, too - prior to assessment, you are more or less expected to build a convincing case for yourself, which means you have to do enough research to persuade a medical professional who may or may not be inclined to think of all this neurospicy nonsense is a waste of time.

Even if I did get approved for an autism assessment with the NHS, the waiting list is years (yes, years) long. Private care is prohibitively expensive, unless you're desperate enough. Or, you know, rich. I've seen prices in the thousands (yes, thousands).

I'm also unsure, in practical terms, what I stand to gain from an official diagnosis as opposed to, say, seeking out a local branch of the autistic community. Not because I don't trust institutions, but because "access to accommodations" rarely gets elaborated on further, and is not a guarantee. There are also situations where the label would create incompatibility where there previously was none - for example, certain immigration policies reject autistic people outright. Not that I'm thinking of moving to New Zealand, but still.

There's a lot to consider. I haven't gotten around to making an exhaustive list of pros and cons and I don't think I'll have the energy for it anytime soon. Please feel free to add your two cents if you'd like.

×

Alright, so an official diagnosis isn't quite the no-brainer you thought it was, but "that doesn't excuse people labelling themselves for the fun of it".

Buddy. Friend. Kindred spirit o' mine.

We are doing this because we are having difficulty surviving in a world that wasn't built for us. I don't know what your definition of "fun" is, but I can think of a few other things I'd rather be doing than grappling with burnout and existential crises for half of my twenties - because that's what happens when you grow up being told that your lived experience isn't real. That you couldn't possibly feel this way, because the rest of the class feels fine.

People worrying about fake disabilities are still trying to fit neurodivergent content into a neurotypical point of view. They see someone trying to normalise the disabled experience and think: "If I did that, I'd be doing it for attention," then carry on to brutally mock them as some sort of righteous punishment for being too weird online.**

I have had to sift through a metric ton of trauma to build my identity back up from scratch. Really puts the "fun" in "dysfunctional". And believe it or not, I have had a relatively easy time of it.

About that intersectionality:

My trials as a disabled immigrant have been frustrating, but I'm also a young, straight-passing, cis white woman. People of colour go undiagnosed at far higher rates - their symptoms are overlooked more, and when they are recognised they are often misconstrued as threatening. Trans people get written off altogether, because transitioning apparently means there are no other medically relevant aspects of your life? I'm sorry?

I cannot speak with authority on these experiences, but I can say that defining someone by a single facet of their personhood is redundant and insulting, and causes real harm when that preconception bars access to the care they need. It's high time we put work into understanding how our differences interact, and hammer home the fact that intersectionality isn't the exception, it's the rule.

If there's one thing that's going to make it harder to recognise the signs of genuine neurodivergence, it's facing constant doubt. Which we do, about our struggles themselves, and the severity of them. The things that happen to us either happen to nobody, or they happen to everybody - so don't be such a bummer, it's neither the time nor the place, etc.

Maybe there is no adequate time or place for these conversations by design. Maybe the discomfort you feel has less to do with sensing pretense and more to do with rejecting something you don't understand. Maybe it's possible for us to think, speak, and act a little differently than you do, all while being sincere. Maybe letting us exist as we are won't make the world implode.

Food for thought.

×

I'll end on this note, because there is always someone who needs to hear it: Whatever the rest of your life looks like, if you are neurodivergent, you are part of the community. I believe you. You belong.

×××

*In the case of the NHS being unable to provide adequate care, it is a patient's right to request access to an alternative healthcare provider, free of charge. This is known as the right to choose. I've linked Psychiatry UK because they have a comprehensive explanation (and they were nice to me), however their waiting lists have also extended into oblivion.

**Like when Chloé Hayden (actor, author and disability rights advocate, with diagnosed auDHD) received overwhelming backlash (after posting a video of herself displaying unmasked joy) that led to her stepping away from social media.

#autism #adhd #audhd #neurodivergent #burnout #nhs #self-diagnosis #fake disability #right to choose #ramblepost

[pyreflydust]

Sometimes my mother complains that my brother cares too much about appearances and she ignores when I say I do too. Because I don't do it in a way she disapproves of (he acts Too Smart and Too Academic and wears clothes that are Too Nice and I simply HIDE because if people PERCEIVE ME then they'll see my flaws) and I know part of it is because he holds himself together around everyone else and she has to deal with the fallout and only I have to deal with the fallout of my failure to hold myself together while still desperately trying but...

I don't have an On Paper bpd diagnosis but I have an On Paper "We think (he) has bpd but we're not supposed to diagnose that in 13 year olds" on some old psych test from 1999. I had a psychiatrist who insisted I had Rapid Cycle Bipolar despite the fact the cycles were Too Rapid and never really went Up and a therapist who years later, without confirming one way or another, pointed out that most Rapid Cycle Bipolar diagnoses are actually really just Borderline Personality. I have a therapist now who has gestured to coping that I do as Overcontrolled and I think about how the one who most implied I Might have bpd said I have control issues (not as a judgment just as a statement and fuck knows she's right.)

Overcontrolled Personality can come with so very many things. It doesn't have to be "Quiet" bpd but it can be. And I think about how much of my earliest therapy was about making me stop being loud and how many of my toxic behaviors I had to swallow instead of learning to cope with them because it was never "Why are you doing this? Are you in pain?" it was "jfc stop doing this and snap a rubber band against your arm instead" I think about how the "quiet" part of bpd reminds me of the complaint I've seen many people have about autism and adhd and how people rely on external symptoms to make diagnoses. How so many people only care how someone else's mental illness or developmental disorder affects them.

When I was digging into this, before I backed away for fear of seeing my own reflection, I saw someone use the terms pleasure seeking and risk averse and I think about how badly I wanted to be pleasure seeking even if it destroyed me but I was pushed back further and further until I became risk averse. Which is still destructive, just in a way people consider "quiet" so no one gives a shit.

When I go outside, I feel like I'm just visiting. I don't belong out there, mingling with the living humans. I care about appearances but I cannot fake something that Feels Human so I need as little exposure as possible to the Real Humans. I would love to interact with people more, to have a community (to be allowed in a relationship especially because it has been fifteen fucking years since my last one entire teenagers, potentially ones reading this, have been born since then) but the very idea of trying feels like shoving my entire hand into an open wound. I'm afraid everyone else will notice that I don't fit. I'm afraid they'll be disgusted by the very sight of me, let alone the words and the thoughts and the feelings that make up who I am. But the longer I stay shut in, the more I rot and the more I rot, the less chance I have of ever being happy.

#hello time for me to dump my guts onto tumblr dot com at 7am est...edt? whatever #anyway in case this Concerns anyone I'm gonna hopefully be starting a bunch of Extra Therapy soon regardless of Actual Dx #(almost wrong Canon instead of Actual but I mean same thing I guess when you feel Fictional) #little alien life shit

[bringmefoxgloves]

very long vent stuff about life under cut. it’s a road map for what is going wrong in my life and setting out what i have to do. don’t feel like you need to read it at all lmao, this more for my own reference and reflection.

i’m looking at my future and how i could ever afford to move out and live my best, healthy and accomplished life. i’m looking down some hard numbers and facts.

this is all more for my own sake, seeing everything laid out for myself and what i need to accomplish and what i need to pay, what i should do in what order.

my school financial aid offer finally came back. my program’s estimated cost is $13,693, and i was offered $7,745 in aid. $4,245 of that is a pell grant (i don’t have to pay that back), while $3,500 of that is a federal direct stafford loan-sub (which i will have to pay back) and it leaves $5,948 that i have to make up somehow. and this is estimated, not actual.

i still need a laptop because i need the ability to study not in my room for various reasons such as ability to study anywhere if i need to get out of the house, so i don’t feel ashamed of the view of my messy room and feel like i won’t want to log on, and so i can do schoolwork while laying down or at a bigger table/desk than my very small desk in my room.

for a laptop that will last me my entire school time, i would be looking at $250 to $650 for a laptop, on the budget end, i think.

so in total for school, i think, i need somewhere around $5,500.

i need to visit student financial aid on monday and explore the options and opportunities of possible grants or scholarships to help cover the gap.

i would also have to add on 8 months to my two year (or more) bachelor’s degree in health information management for medical coding if it isn’t included in my program. also the field could be changing fast and i may have to pivot in what i am pursuing in my education.

as for my health issues, and the possibility of diagnosis, that depends.

i need to do some personal reckoning, getting myself on a schedule and routine. i do have to admit i have let my own personal hygiene and habits slip. that is my personal responsibility.

i need to make sure i go to bed on time, rather than stay up on my phone. i need to take my nighttime medication, wake up in the morning and shower and take my morning medicines, including my testosterone, on a normal daily basis. i also need to drink more water, way more.

however i know that will take away spoons from my already low amount of spoons available. i need to balance my life schedule and activity load, pacing myself. i should do anything my doctor recommends for me to do to help control what i can.

in the area of diagnosis, i am already diagnosed with adhd (inattentive) and long covid.

i’m working on getting a diagnosis for my chronic fatigue, racing heart and pre-syncope (which i believe is pots, which is connected to long covid). however, i also have joint instability, chronic pain, weakness my limbs, trouble walking without mobility aids (however most days using a cane makes my wrist, elbow and should joints hurt), and making sure my legs/spine are supporting myself as my legs and spine feel extremely unstable (i believe this is EDS or one of its related diagnoses).

all these health conditions are ones that immediately impact my health and functioning levels. i need to get these conditions supported and reduced in severity as none of them are curable conditions (if these things are from the conditions i suspect).

i may have more serious conditions or complications of these conditions that i have not noticed or are not diagnosed and may further disable me. that too is a reality i should keep in mind going forward.

i need to continue with the doctor i’m working with to try and get diagnosed or find the condition that is causing my decreased functioning. this will take time, as i just today finished and sent off my heart monitor to be analyzed. this will take a while.

however i will soon be having a follow up with my doctor for my wellbutrin prescription, which currently doesn’t feel like it is affecting me much, though that might be because my chronic fatigue and pain make my brain fog and anxiety mask any benefits of the medication. i might have to increase my dosage or switch up my medication. i need to discuss this with my doctor.

another thing i might look into, is getting a tilt table test as it seems my doctor is amenable to it, and that would help me reach my pots diagnosis faster. that means i would have to drive up to portland. also, i need to bring up my joint pain and instability to them, and my desire for mobility supports.

as for these mobility supports and other care needs, which i think would contribute to my comfort and wellbeing, they are but not limited to: a cane, a wheelchair, shower stool, finger splint rings, wrist supports, joint wraps, compression socks, heart monitoring watch, kt tape, and a weighted blanket. some of these are able to be covered by my health insurance as long as i get diagnosed, but others might not. i will need to research costs and plan ahead.

a further diagnosis i might need to push for is my autism diagnosis. i have been resistant to receiving one, as it would limit some aspects of my life to be labeled as such (i have heard horror stories of discrimination in healthcare settings, workplaces and it limits which countries would take me if i decide to leave the us as my home) but i think, overall, it would be helpful to me in the long run.

i think my autism has a much bigger impact on my entire life, since childhood, than i had previously wished to acknowledge. it impacts my life skills, social interactions, ability to create relationships, daily activities (such as showering and eating), schooling (i’ve failed out of college multiple times, which i think can also be contributed to adhd), and my ability to work (i have never been able to hold onto a job for longer than a couple of years).

in my current situation i don’t feel comfortable to do behaviors that will mitigate meltdowns or shutdowns, and burnout. i don’t want to stim in any highly noticeable way and i mask constantly, even at home, because i was trained out of that through schooling and the ignorance of my family.

the stiming i do feel fine doing are more self injurious than helpful, such as skin picking, scratching and peeling my lips. i know it is resulting from higher stress levels that i engage in these behaviors more.

i also don’t discuss my special interests or feel like i have the support or space to pursue them. my family regards my special interests as failed hobbies and strange obsessions, and find my info dumps tiring or annoying to deal with, especially my step father and younger brother.

they don’t seem to care about learning more about my autism and how it affects me, if not they don’t want to learn about the spectrum of autism as i think i live in an under diagnosed home and they would have to confront their own issues.

if i was diagnosed, i could get far more support and accommodations for my behaviors and needs. future work would be easier if i could wear headphones and have other needs met. schooling would be easier as well. and i could potentially get more benefits, if i was able to be granted some form of disability payment, or have lower income housing open to me applying.

one fear i have about getting an autism diagnosis is that my gender identity would be invalidated and ignored and medical care would be denied to me. i don’t think that my current pcp doctor would limit my care if i had a diagnosis. i also need to get back into therapy to support me through this process. and getting a diagnosis might make it possible for me to access supported but independent housing i need for my own health.

i truly believe that moving out would be my best option at this point. i want to live on my own so i can take control of my life. ideally i would like to live in a one bedroom apartment at this point, working towards buying my own home. at the very least i want to have some sort of rental assistance, if available. i would even be willing to move into a trailer park.

ultimately i just want my own space. it will help with my mental state and grant me the ability to make my own decisions about every aspect of my life, something i need to relieve my anxiety and depression. i don’t feel fully supported or safe in my home.

if i lived on my own i can improve my nutrition by being able to cook and eat what i want when i want, and receive snap benefits because my family wouldn’t be contributing as much to my food. i would control what would be in my fridge and cupboards, how many dishes i produce.

i also wouldn’t have my mother judging what i ate or make or telling me to go on fad diets, complaining that she is overweight (so i am too by extension because i have her same body size and type), seek out alternative medicine that has no proven benefits, or try to get me to take unproven supplements as magical cure alls. her issues with her health wouldn’t be projected onto me.

if i lived on my own, i could potentially live in a more accessible environment, where i could use my mobility aids or lay on the floor as needed, do my own gentle exercise (yoga, strength training), and have a bathroom to myself. i wouldn’t have to explain and justify my pain levels or ability to accomplish tasks, or be called lazy or weak for relying on mobility aids.

i could limit triggers (slamming doors, raised voices, loud laughter, strangers randomly appearing inside my home because they were invited in by someone i love with, being watched over my shoulder) that leave me stressed and tense and grinding my teeth, scared to leave my bedroom.

i could also reduce sensory overload by controlling my environment, such as controlling temperature and times appliances are running or fan use. i would be able to control my environment, how it looks and how it feels to my body and sensitivities.

i would be able able to control my own schedule. i would have access to public transportation and not have to coordinate my transportation with others who dominate the car usage of the household. i could go out on my own, without having to explain why or where i’m going, i could go to see friends or invite them over.

while i would be responsible for controlling my own finances and paying my own bills, cooking my own food and cleaning my environment, i don’t find those as hard as long as i can do it my way, with my system. i would actually look forward to it, to give myself a chance to be able to do hard things and survive them.

if i lived in town, i would be able to have wider job opportunities available to me and i could really start up my own business and work. being able to access an area with a better social fabric and community involvement would support me and help me make connections.

at current moment, my finances are dire. i have less than $1 in my bank account. i need to avail myself of mutual aid and fundraising. i will ask my parents for money tomorrow and lay out this life plan to them, with some adjustment to not insult or implicate them in my self neglect and worsening mental and physical health.

i still need to remain with them for a while longer, as it might take a long time for me to line all this up. i have my top surgery consult in 2025, and hopefully it will happen that same year, if not sooner. i need their assistance to care for me during my recovery period, if not i need to have friends or avail myself of the local trans community support group to find a temporary caretaker to support me.

this limits me a bit in terms of finding independence sooner rather than later but this is a long process, that i have set out for myself. it may take years for my diagnosis to all be found. it may take multiple attempts to get approved for disability. it may take years to get into an affordable apartment and set up my own place, find my own groove and system.

i need to have patience but i can’t just sit back and throw up my hands.

so what i need to do is clear. i need to work on my personal health, find out if i can get on disability and if not, part time work, and see if i could move out. all during this i need to apply myself to my studies and get my degree.

there is a long hard road ahead of me but i need to find my way to it. i can’t stay stagnant and continue to suffer in silence and pain and isolation.

i want to live my best, most healthy life i can.

i deserve to.

#wes babbles #lifeplan for the ghost

[i-like-gay-books]

long post so i GUESS i’ll put it under the cut

so i’ve been really reflecting lately on my self diagnosis of autism, especially since i’ve been really coming into myself and managing my anxiety better than ever before, and ive been wondering whether it might be that the symptoms i thought were attached to being autistic are just how anxiety manifests in me and the things about myself that i thought proved that i dont have adhd in any way may also just be how anxiety manifests in me. because also even though ive really related with autism and the social symptoms, i’ve never really been sure i have sensory processing issues, at least not to the extent that the dsm specifies in order to be autistic. and what i really HAVE related to is the inability to just sit down and get shit done. so i took another self assessment with this clearer knowledge i have of myself and how i really function as a human being when im on my own and living as an adult and

the only ones that arent high levels are literally the ones that i can directly pinpoint as one of my biggest concerns with my anxiety. impulsivity is the one that makes adhders more likely to butt into conversations or keep going on for a long time or make decisions and later regret them. as you may have noticed i am particularly long winded when im typing, but is that true of me in real life? like at all? not really. i struggle to get two words out sometimes. i was selectively mute in my childhood. i can say for a fact that the reason for this in my hyper-awareness of the potential of making a faux pas or embarrassing myself in social situations. and i have decision paralysis due to the same phenomenon. im very aware of the potential of disappointing other people if i make a bad decision. im not sure if impulsivity would manifest itself in the “typical” adhd way if my anxiety wasn’t there, but i have no way of ever knowing that because it is.

and forgetfulness. i beat that shit out of myself when i was younger. i can clearly remember a time in elementary school, then in middle school, then in high school (before i started writing sticky notes for myself) when i would get myself in trouble just simply because of forgetting about assignments. my family is very academically oriented. my parents wouldnt be SUPER mad at me if i was trying my best and didnt get good grades, but i knew they would be disappointed if i didnt try my best. i have so many systems in place so as to never ever forget about schoolwork any more. you have no clue how revolutionary it is for me that college professors actually put all of the assignments for the semester of the syllabus. one of my biggest gripes about high school was that the teachers would just assign homework seemingly at random? it was easy to forget if you werent writing it all down, ok? and for appointments? same deal. my parents kind of took care of the remembering appointments part before i got older and by now i do have these systems in place for myself. i do often forget to make calls, mostly because i dont make a point of writing it down as a task for myself because making calls gives me anxiety. yeah.

also i sat here and took this assessment and wrote all of this instead of working on my 2000 word midterm paper due next tuesday for which i have exactly one sentence written. listen, procrastination is a universal trait, but i just felt like it was relevant.

#not saying this necessarily proves anything #and of course i know professional assessment is the only true way to know #but i have anxiety #and possibly adhd #how do you think i handle the medical system? #i really shouldve had therapy at this point in my life but thats too difficult to get started lol #OH #also #i am fucking SHIT at creating habits for myself #i have to physically force myself to even go and brush my teeth every night and every morning #and washing my face only gets done half the time because its easier to not do it and i get bored if im in the bathroom too long #i have to make every task i do more interesting for myself or i wont do it #i used to hate taking time out of my day to even shower before i started listening to music in the shower #and i like to watch shows or videos while i cook or wash dishes or fold laundry #damn i maybe shouldve considered this more seriously sooner #i forgot to consider the world in which all social anxiety does not automatically equal autism #i need to stop typing now #i really have work to get done #ugghghhghghghhhhh #cloudy rambles

[shrimpmandan]

Hey regular reminder I'm pro-self dx. Being anti-self dx is ableist and often also intersects with other -isms die to the fact that doctors (particularly in the West) love to not take the issues of minorities seriously and/or reflect biases based on gender.

You wanna make an argument about how "oh, but psychologists have studied this all their lives"? Sure. If they studied specific BRANCHES of psychology. A lot of psychologists honestly are only equipped for depression, anxiety, and life environment issues. Finding specialists takes fucking ages and more often than not is stupidly expensive. Do you wanna know how many trans specialists there are in my area that take my insurance, and are also knowledgeable in autism? Fucking none! So I'm self-diagnosed with gender dysphoria. I have been for the past 3 years.

My mom-- my 40 year old mom who has a BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY-- is self-diagnosed with DID. She was abused extensively by therapists for having a personality disorder, on top of deadass 10 other mental illnesses she was actually diagnosed with. You aren't mocking internet TikTok kids when you're mocking the self diagnosed. You're mocking those who were abused by the system, repeatedly silenced, railroaded onto medication they didn't need, and who found answers and solace when doing HOURS, and I mean HOURS of research into what they suspected to have on their own.

I'm not "self-suspecting" on if I have ADHD or PTSD. I have fucking literally experienced panic attacks, flashbacks, and fight or flight responses on a consistent basis. I've struggled with executive dysfunction and inattentiveness to the point I was misdiagnosed with depression. Shove that "oh you're just ~self-suspecting~" shit straight up your ass and have some damn empathy for those who are mocked by doctors for saying they think they're neurodivergent. Placed on actual placebo stimulants because they think people claiming to have ADHD are meth junkies. People who are told their symptoms are "just depression" and then are driven to suicide by SSRIs.

I'm not anti-psych by a wide, wide margin. But I cannot fucking stand the ignorance and arrogance of people who themselves don't know anything about psychology, who then try to bully and silence those who have fucking scoured every book and resource they can find just trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with them so they can move on with their lives-- whether this means self-acceptance, finding community, researching coping mechanisms, or for some but far from all, actually pursuing a professional diagnosis. Psychology is my special interest. I think I know more about it than the guy insisting that psychologists know everything about every disorder like it ISN'T a unique type of hell to find therapists who are at least knowledgeable of your entire psychological profile.

#personal #okay to reblog #pro self dx #pro self diagnosis #ableism