#ADDitude magazine

[ub-sessed]

For clinicians who work with later adolescents and adults, the DSM-V criteria are almost useless because they ignore so much which is vital to understanding how people with an ADHD nervous system experience their lives.

...they have little control over an episode of RSD once it begins. The incidents have to run their course. Some people with ADHD, however, report that getting interested in something new and fascinating can help to end an RSD episode more quickly than it would otherwise. In my clinical experience, neither coaching nor traditional psychological or behavioral therapies — like CBT or DBT — offer any prevention or relief from impairments. Nonetheless, many people report that it is very helpful for them to know that this highly disruptive experience is real, common, and shared by other people with ADHD.

Article updated July 11, 2022.

[hauntedselves]

ironically, Additude magazine is pretty overwhelming to read. you'd think an online resource about Distractablilty Disorder(TM) would know better than to crowd their articles with ads.

here's what it should look like (after zapping it with uBlock Origin):

instead, heres what it currently looks like:

thats bad accessibility and web design... what happened to "know your audience"?

[priapocalypse]

The ADHD world is curvilinear. Past, present, and future are never separate and distinct. Everything is now. Individuals with ADHD live in a permanent present and have a hard time learning from the past or looking into the future to see the consequences of their actions. "Acting without thinking" is the definition of impulsivity, and one of the reasons that people with ADHD have trouble learning from experience.

From this great article explaining ADHD traits:

[monriatitans]

Hello Teachers of Brains!

I know you’re out there in the classroom every day, overwhelmed with the number of students/lesson plans/IEPs/504 plans/etc. etc. etc. you have to worry about -- I’m not here to add to your plate, I’d like to make it easier. Your ADHD students need you, whether or not they’ve been diagnosed -- let me know how I can help.  Happy back to school!

(Classroom-friendly!) Fidgets: https://www.fidgetland.com/product/noah https://www.tanglecreations.com/colle... https://www.boinks.com/

Posters: An all-brains-appropriate version of our "you are not alone" poster: *technical difficulties uploading this, please check back after Edward gets some sleep*

The iceberg animation was based off a poster from ADDitude Magazine.  You can find it here: http://bit.ly/2MLEUGe

This is what it's really like to have ADHD:   • This is What It's...  

"Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story" – My TEDx talk:   • Failing at Normal...   

Understood through your child’s eyes tool: https://u.org/2Jwj2tz

[mitzvahmelting]

this is nice but like. i personally very much do have baseless, apprehensive fears too fjdjdjfjf.

while i do think "humanize your symptoms instead of pathologizing them" is very useful, especially when talking to your doctors and seeking a diagnosis, i'm just... iffy about additude magazine as a whole because it's the same place dr. dodson turned anecdotes about rejection-sensitivity into a whole knew symptom for the ADHD community without, like, the scientific method getting involves.

When a person with ADHD complains of severe anxiety, I recommend that the clinician not immediately accept the patient’s label for her emotional experience. A clinician should say, “Tell me more about your baseless, apprehensive fear,” which is the definition of anxiety. More times than not, a person with ADHD hyperarousal will give a quizzical look and respond, “I never said I was afraid.” If the patient can drop the label long enough to describe what the feeling is like, a clinician will likely hear, “I am always tense; I can’t relax enough to sit and watch a movie or TV program. I always feel like I have to go do something.” The patients are describing the inner experience of hyperactivity when it is not being expressed physically.

At the same time, people with ADHD also have fears that are based on real events in their lives. People with ADHD nervous systems are consistently inconsistent. The person is never sure that her abilities and intellect will show up when they are needed. Not being able to measure up at the job or at school, or in social circles is humiliating. It is understandable that people with ADHD live with persistent fear. These fears are real, so they do not indicate an anxiety disorder.

holy SHIT

[reasonsforhope]

By the way, you can improve your executive function. You can literally build it like a muscle.

Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. I don't have ADHD, but it is allegedly a thing with ADHD as well. And I am autistic, and after a bunch of nerve damage (severe enough that I was basically housebound for 6 months), I had to completely rebuild my ability to get my brain to Do Things from what felt like nearly scratch.

This is specifically from ADDitude magazine, so written specifically for ADHD (and while focused in large part on kids, also definitely includes adults and adult activities):

Here's a link on this for autism (though as an editor wow did that title need an editor lol):

Resources on this aren't great because they're mainly aimed at neurotypical therapists or parents of neurdivergent children. There's worksheets you can do that help a lot too or thought work you can do to sort of build the neuro-infrastructure for tasks.

But a lot of the stuff is just like. fun. Pulling from both the first article and my own experience:

Play games or video games where you have to make a lot of decisions. Literally go make a ton of picrews or do online dress-up dolls if you like. It helped me.

Art, especially forms of art that require patience, planning ahead, or in contrast improvisation

Listening to longform storytelling without visuals, e.g. just listening regularly to audiobooks or narrative podcasts, etc.

Meditation

Martial arts

Sports in general

Board games like chess or Catan (I actually found a big list of what board games are good for building what executive functioning skills here)

Woodworking

Cooking

If you're bad at time management play games or video games with a bunch of timers

Things can be easier. You might always have a disability around this (I certainly always will), but it can be easier. You do not have to be this stuck forever.

[telanana]

me (adhd), looking up job interview advice:

every article I find: don't fidget! make eye contact!! don't ramble or just blurt out answers and don't interrupt

me:

[anissapierce]

"i have adhd boredom is painful letting kids with be bored is bad for them'

Consider this .... Boredom being painful is universal and its an important part of boredom and using the psychiatry approved label as a shoeld isnt the argument ender you think it is

[freckliedan]

phil formspring, november 2009 / dan interview with additude magazine, october 2020

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam, could you please recommend any resources/websites to learn about ADHD medication? Until reading your post about second-line meds I thought Adderal was the only one

I can definitely talk about it a little! Always bearing in mind that I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice, etc. etc.

So, I've had many friends with ADHD in my life before I got my diagnosis and I picked up some stuff from them even before getting diagnosed; I also spoke with my prescribing psychiatrist about options when we met. If you think your psychiatrist might be resistant to discussing options, or you don't have one, doing your own research is good, but it's not really a substitute for a specialist in medication management. So it's also important to know what your needs are -- ie, "I want help with my executive function but I need something that's nonaddictive" or "I want something nonsedative" or "I don't think the treatment I'm on is working, what is available outside of this kind of medication?"

The problems you run into with researching medication for ADHD are threefold:

Most well-informed sources aren't actually geared towards non-doctor adults who just want to know what their options are -- they're usually either doctors who don't know how to talk about medication to non-doctors, or doctors (and parents) talking to parents about pediatric options.

A huge number of sites when you google are either AI-generated, covert ads for stimulant addiction rehab, or both.

Reliable sites with easy-to-understand information are not updated super often.

So you just kind of have to be really alert and read the "page" itself for context clues -- is it a science journal, is it an organization that helps people with ADHD, is it a doctor, is it a rehab clinic, is it a drug advertiser, is it a random site with a weird URL that's probably AI generated, etc.

So for example, ADDitude Magazine, which is kind of the pre-eminent clearinghouse for non-scholarly information on ADHD, is a great place to start, but when the research is clearly outlined it sometimes isn't up-to-date, and when it's up-to-date it's often a little impenetrable. They have an extensive library of podcast/webinars, and I started this particular research with this one, but his slides aren't super well-organized, he flips back and forth between chemical and brand name, and he doesn't always designate which is which. However, he does have a couple of slides that list off a bunch of medications, so I just put those into a spreadsheet, gleaned what I could from him, and then searched each medication. I did find a pretty good chart at WebMD that at least gives you the types and brand names fairly visibly. (Fwiw with the webinar, I definitely spent more time skimming the transcript than listening to him, auto transcription isn't GOOD but it is helpful in speeding through stuff like that.)

I think, functionally, there are four types of meds for ADHD, and the more popular ones often have several variations. Sometimes this is just for dosage purposes -- like, if you have trouble swallowing pills there are some meds that come in liquids or patches, so it's useful to learn the chemical name rather than the brand name, because then you can identify several "brands" that all use the same chemical and start to differentiate between them.

Top of the list you have your methylphenidate and your amphetamine, those are the two types of stimulant medications; the most well known brand names for these are Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Adderall (amphetamine).

Then there's the nonstimulant medications, SNRIs (Strattera, for example) and Alpha-2 Agonists (guanfacine and clonidine, brand names Kapvay and Intuniv; I'm looking at these for a second-line medication). There's some crossover between these and the next category:

Antidepressants are sometimes helpful with ADHD symptoms as well as being helpful for depression; I haven't looked at these much because for me they feel like the nuclear option, but it's Dopamine reuptake inhibitors like Wellbutrin and tricyclics like Tofranil. If you're researching these you don't need to look at like, every antidepressant ever, just look for ones that are specifically mentioned in context with ADHD.

Lastly there are what I call the Offlabels -- medications that we understand to have an impact on ADHD for some people, but which aren't generally prescribed very often, and sometimes aren't approved for use. I don't know much about these, either, because they tend to be for complex cases that don't respond to the usual scrips and are particularly difficult to research. The one I have in my notes is memantine (brand name Namenda) which is primarily a dementia medication that has shown to be particularly helpful for social cognition in people with combined Autism/ADHD.

So yeah -- hopefully that's a start for you, but as with everything online, don't take my word for it -- I'm also a lay person and may get stuff wrong, so this is just what I've found and kept in my notes. Your best bet truly is to find a psychiatrist specializing in ADHD medication management and discuss your options with them. Good luck!

[do-you-know-this-adhd-character]

Do you know this (noncanon) ADHD character?

Evidence under the cut!

Wildly out-of-the-box thinker with no patience for anything boring, hyperactive, invented a game where the only rule is that the rules are whatever you say they are in the moment (talking about this is what made me say "I should probably submit Calvin JUST in case no one else has yet). While looking up whether he was ever canonically confirmed ADHD (afai can tell, no, but there's LOTS of speculation), I found this article from ADDitude Magazine itself that has a lovely description of Calvin (under the "Hyperactivity" subsection) that could also serve as propaganda

From Mudkip: Decided I'd copy and paste the relevant section for you, but the article is linked if you want to peruse the whole thing!

Think about Calvin, in Calvin and Hobbes, who has an overactive body and imagination. Take him to the doctor, and he slides off the table, turns upside down, with his head on the floor and his feet in the air. Ask him a question and he starts chattering away. He has no clue about what he’s saying, but he’s eager to share all the things he’s been thinking about while the adults were talking. He spews rapid-fire thoughts about school, an adventure with Hobbes, and what he wants for dinner. When the adults start talking to each other again, he slides along the floor like a lizard pursuing a mosquito on the windowsill.

[monriatitans]

ADHD ACCEPTANCE MONTH QUOTE 4

The image was made in Canva; check it out at the [referral] link here!

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

"I'm over it. All the little costs of having ADHD that add up in the long run. Lost customers. Overdue bills. Replacement phone chargers. Time spent looking for things. The way it makes me feel, like a child. As if everyone else is a real adult and I'm just pretending. The frustration that I can't do the simple, everyday things that most people can. Like laundry, and making phone calls, and remembering to take out something from the freezer for dinner. It's the missed deadlines for opportunities I could've had. The broken relationships. How people think I'm lazy and selfish. How they think I don't care. How I think I'm lazy and selfish, even though I know I care." – Sarah Grunder Ruiz, Last Call at the Local

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interested in seeing where the quote came from? If so, click here! Want information & support for families and individuals living with ADHD? If so, check out the ADDitude Magazine! For the curious, the purpose of this series of quotes can be found here! And I got the Rainbow Butterfly image from here! Like what you see and want to know when there's more? Click here to subscribe for updates and/or hit the Follow button! Enjoy what I do? Please consider supporting via the WGS Ko-fi!

For more about me, click here! Watch me on Twitch, YouTube, Rumble, and Odysee!

[chronic-cane]

It's so odd that ADHD is so commercialized, medicalized, and stigmatized.

I got an ADDitude magazine from the library to look through for anything that could help my current research project. A little over a third of the pages have ads. A lot of them specifically marketing towards helping ADHD. About 25 out of 70 pages. Compared to National Review's 3 out of 60 pages or The Progressives 5 out of 70. There is literally a dedicated section for advertisements in ADDitude.

In the past this group has been helpful for me a few times, but its also heavy in pseudoscience. Plenty of the ads were for "ADHD supplements" and shit. But it's the thing you first come across when looking for resources.

I'm fully aware that ADHD is seen as basically the anti capitalist machine disorder. The main focus behind treatment is to increase productivity most of the time. Which has lead to people rightfully pointing that out before then unrightfully stating that it isn't a real mental disorder or disability. So then those of us with ADHD see the ones that are dismissing us and even go so far to over medicalize ourselves in the process. Or at least the second part is my experience and what I theorize.

And that really sucks. I look to the autistic community more than the ADHD community at this point for support with my developmental disability.

We could have, and still can, incorporate ADHD not only as an example of some mental illnesses are socially constructed based off of societal norms, and instead a more extreme example of most if not all mental illnesses constructed off of societal norms.

We could recognize that even though medication helps focus and some behavioral aspects, we still appear odd, neurodivergent, to people. That we learn how to go through the world differently and face plenty of stigma and discrimination. Not because it's a medicalization of "bad character" but instead of form of madness impacted by sanism.

[eashmo]

7 minutes in hell, or is it heaven? Part 12

-There are Stranger Things out there-

Warnings: abuse and angst.

a/n: if ya’ll could'nt tell the time line is totally fuck up from how the show is. also this chapter gave me trouble i didnt want to write it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Billy pov *

 I was relaxing on my bed  flipping through a new rolling stones magazine when I heard my fathers angry voice ringing through the quiet house.

“William! Get your ass down here, right now!” I shivered at my father’s voice, speedily jumping up from my bed, and quickly went downstairs. “You needed me, sir?”

Neil walked over to susannand whispered in her ear. She looked at Billy like she wanted to say something to him but shook her head and left. She always wanted to say something. She just never did.

 “Where the fuck is maxine?” Neil snaps. 

“I don’t know, sir. She is probably at the movies or arcade” 

“You let her go alone?”

“She's old enough to take care of herself.”

“You know what I’m done playing these games. I’m done with your fucking additude”. He slaps me across the face. 

“What did we talk about?”

“Respect and responsibility.” 

“Fucking find your sister!’ instead of staring at yourself in the fucking mirror faggot and get her home immedially” he spats while dragging me out of the house throwing me on the ground next to my car.

I headed to Sinclair's house first, but mrs. Sinclair said that the kids were probably at the wheeler's house.

I rang the doorbell to the wheeler's house, but there was no answer, so i tried again. The door opened to a woman wearing just a robe, her hair slightly wet. She must have gotten out of the shower or something. 

“Oh Hi”  I smiled at her.

“Hi” she softly says. She stared at me in awe, this is going to be fun, i thought. Using my charm to get information faster. 

“I, uh, didn't realize Nancy had a sister. She chuckles lightly. 

 “What's so funny?”

“I'm Nancy's mother.” she laughs. 

Chuckling in disbelief  “Mrs. wheeler”

“Um, I'm sorry, and you are you?” she stammers.

“Billy, Billy hargrove.” I said as I took her hand delicly.

“You must be here for Nancy.”

“Nancy? No, no. Not my type. uh…. “ I noticed she had a glimmer of hope behind her eyes. Sorry, mrs. wheeler im taken. I smile to myself. “No, actually, I am looking for my little sister Max. goes by maxine. She's been missing all day, and, uh, to be honest with you, I've been worried sick, you know, so….”  Not going to lie to myself. i was actually starting to get a little worried about Max. 

“Oh”

“I thought she was at Lucas", but Mrs. Sinclair said your house is the designated hangout, so, you know…"I leaned on the door frame, smirking slightly “here i am.” 

“Come on in, i give you the byer's address.'' She says, opening the door more for me to follow her inside.

“Their driveway is pretty dark this time of night. So drive slowly.” She handed me a piece of paper.

“Always” I smiled at her.

“And when you see Mike tell him to come home already, okay?”

“You’re a real lifesaver, you know that?” I said as I took a bite of a cookie she offered. 

“Anytime.”

“I’ll see you later.” walking out the room i can feel her eyes on me. Chucking, y/n is going to kill me if she finds out I let mrs. wheeler eye fucked me but i needed the inforation for my sake. 

*small time skip*

I pulled up to the byers' house. I see Harrington standing at the front door. “Am I dreaming, or is that you, Harrington?”

“Yeah, it's me. Dont cream your pants.”

“What are you doing here, amigo?”

“I could ask you the same thing, amigo, y/n isn't here, by the way.”

“I'm not looking for her, I'm looking for my stepsister. A little birdie told me she was here.”

“Huh, that's weird. I don't know her.”

“Small, redhead, bit of a bitch.” 

“Doesn't ring a bell. Sorry, buddy.”

Sighing “you know, i don't know, this whole situation, Harrington, i don’t know. It's giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Oh, yeah? Why is that?”

“My 13 year old sister goes missing all day. And then I found her with you in a stranger's house. And you lie to me about it.”

He chuckles. “Man, were you dropped too much as a child, or what? I don't know what you don't understand about what I just said. She's not here.”

“Then who is that?” I pointed my cigarette at the window behind him. He turned, and we saw the kids duck. 

“Oh,shit. Listen….” he started to say before I pushed him to the ground. I leaned over “I'm going to let this slide because you're your y/n friend.” marching to the door, I swung it open to see the kids all staring at me. I saw how close Lucas was next to Max, and that made me furious.

“Well, well, well. Lucas Sinclair. What a surprise.” I say as I walk towards him. Looking over to Max “I thought I told you to stay away from him, max.”

“Billy, go away” she says.

“You disobeyed me. And you know what happens when you disobey me. I break things.” I pushed Lucas against a corner shelf roughly. 

“Billy!, stop!.” she screams. 

“Get off of me.” Lucas says as he struggles under my grip.

“Since Maxine won't listen to me, maybe you will. You stay away from her, you hear me?” I growled.

“I said," Get off me! "” he knees me in the balls, i quickly let go.

“You're so dead, Sinlcair!” 

“No. You are.” Steve turns me away from Lucas and punches me in the jaw. I started to laugh. "LOOKS LIKE THERE'S STILL SOME FIRE IN YOU AFTER ALL! I'VE BEEN WAITING TO MEET THIS KING STEVE EVERYONE HAS BEEN TELLING ME SO MUCH ABOUT!"

“Get out.” was all he said, pushing me back. I threw a punch, but he dodged it, he manages to land a punch on my jaw again.

The kids start yelling “kick his ass, steve!

“Get him!

“Murder the son of a bitch!”

I hit him with a plate and got the upper hand, and continued to land punches on his jaw. “Now one tells me what to do!” I yelled. Steve is a bloody mess on the floor.

“Billy? Kids? What the fuck is going on?” I froze when I heard the y/n voice. “Shit im in trouble” I thought, Steve realized that I stopped and he pushes me into the fridge, a demented dog looking thing fell out onto my lap.

“What the fuck is that?!” i say.

*y/n pov*

I pulled up to the byers house, and I noticed Billy's car  was here, “weird why is he here” I said to myself as i got out of mine. I could hear screaming and yelling coming from the house. I ran to the door thinking we were under attack by demodogs again. I had my nail bat ready and slammed the door open, expecting creatures  but what I found was  my boyfriend beating the ever living shit out of my best friend. 

“Billy? Kids” what the fuck is going on?” I yelled. I noticed Billy froze to my voice and suddenly he was on the floor with a dead demodog on his lap.

“What the fuck is that?!” was all he said. 

“Fuck dustin, why did you have to put in the the fridge.” i say. Great, now I'm going to have to explain everything to Billy, who is probably going to think his girlfriend has gone crazy.

“This is a ground- breaking scientific discovery. We can't just bury it like some common mammal, okay? It's not a dog.” he says as he picks it up from Billy's lap, who was still in shock. 

“Billy?” i say. He doesn't look at me. 

“Baby?” he finally looks at me. “ I'm going to explain everything, so please listen closely…. Okay?” he shook his head, yes. Taking a deep breath.

“The year before you got here, something strange happened to Hawkins. It all started when Will byers went missing, and a girl named Eleven suddenly showed up. El made cross-dimensional psychic contact with the hive mind and opened the "Mothergate" at Hawkins Lab. Somehow, the Mothergate’s creation also caused the Upside Down to transform from its original state and become a perfect copy of the human world, during that time a Demogorgons came through terrorizing both Will in the upside down and our town.” i looked at him carefully. He just sat quietly listening to me. I continued.

“Do you remember when I said i had a brother?” I asked.

“Yes,” he says softly.

“Mikey died at middle school trying to protect the kids from a demogorgon. While I was upside down helping Joyce and Hopper find Will. We managed to get Will back. But he didn't come back nearly like his old self. Recently, he's been having visions about a creature we are calling a mind-flayer, which now has made Will a host. The thing that fell on you was a demodog, a smaller version of a demogorgon. I know all this sounds crazy and I understand if you think I'm crazy but this is what's happening in the hell hole of a town. I wanted to tell you for so long, but I did it to protect you from this, and the government made us promise not to tell anyone." I breathed. 

“You're right. This is crazy and you are crazy, but…. Strangely, I believe you.”  he says, taking my hands. 

“Max, how long have you known?” he asks her.

“Since last year.” she says

“Jesus” he sighs in disbelief. 

"Guys, i have located where hopper dug the entrance to the tunnel," i say to Steve and the kids. as they geared up to help with the mission.

"Baby, i know you're trying to process everything, but we may or may not have to go in an alien vine tunnel thing right now to help save the world."

"oh fucking fantastic" he says as runs after me and the group.

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Part 13

Masterlist

2023