#can you see that i have executive dysfunction

[eimearkuopio]

I'm in the UK, so YMMV, and I was diagnosed at age 33 in about 2018, so things may have changed BUT

To get a diagnosis of ADHD on the NHS, you first need to get a referral and you'll have to figure that stuff out for yourself.

I believe I was diagnosed based on DSM-V criteria but I'm recovering from a pretty severe mental break at the moment. Take everything I say with a pinch of salt, but this is stuff that I am a fairly well-informed lay person on.

There are 18 symptoms of ADHD; 9 inattentive, and 9 hyperactive-impulsive. To qualify for a diagnosis, you need to have a certain number from one or both categories to an extent that it significantly impacts on your day-to-day life. Not being capable of stopping procrastinating even when you want to is a pretty significant symptom of executive dysfunction.

I have all nine inattentive-type symptoms. I also have a PhD that I got by nearly killing myself doing a PhD with undiagnosed ADHD.

The hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are the ones that are easily visible from the outside. To get an ADHD diagnosis, the symptoms need to have been there since childhood, because it's a neurodevelopmental condition. But there's a lot of overlap with other conditions like C-PTSD or bipolar. Think of... The difference between being born with brittle bones and breaking bones easily and repeatedly in circumstances that wouldn't harm most people, versus having grown up in an abusive environment where an adult keeps breaking your bones, versus being in a whole bunch of car crashes where you kept breaking bones.

Your lack of executive function is a symptom that needs to be dealt with for you to be a healthy, happy person, and you might or might not have actual ADHD, but if you want to stop procrastinating and you can't do that, something is wrong. The reason I'm suggesting being assessed for ADHD is that if the reason behind your executive function issues is actually ADHD, it's going to be much easier to treat than the other shit. Not necessarily easy, mind you; but easier than the other options.

I will also say that I think in the next decade or so we're going to see a lot of C-PTSD diagnoses in the aftermath of COVID. So the most important thing is to be kind to yourself, because something is wrong and you don't know what yet. But it's not your fault, because you want to do better and you can't yet. So you need to talk to a professional who can help you figure out what's wrong before you end up in the place I was a month ago. Good luck. There is still hope, but there's more of it when you know your labels and you have the right meds. 💚💜🩷

So I’m a first year uni student. How did you survive your bachelors? It feels like such a long slog, and as I write this I have five things I need to do.

In particular, how did you… not procrastinate

I’d really appreciate any advice you can give!

One day at a time mate. One day at a time.

I can't give you any advice on procrastination, I procrastinated every project I had throughout all of uni.

[rouge-the-bat]

*this would mean finishing the ending twice at separate times

[purpurussy]

.

[whump-queen]

begging someone to hold a gun to my head so my brain will finally make me do my dishes, laundry, vacuuming, job applications, emails, messages,, just to get anything done at all without constantly wanting to die

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Nothing pisses me off more than when people talk about my friendships with mid-support needs autistics and other people with differently-wired brains as if I am descending to help them because I’ve taken them on as a charity case. That is NOT true. Oh they’re a burden because they’re neurodivergent? WELL GUESS FUCKING WHAT: SO AM I! THE REASON I HAVE SO MANY FRIENDS WITH SO MUCH SHIT WRONG WITH THEM IS BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF SHIT WRONG WITH ME. WE ATTRACT EACH OTHER! WE LIKE EACH OTHER! IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD TO UNDERSTAND!

[subway-boss-jericho]

Guys this may come as a surprise but as it turns out i just might need ADHD medication. Like. Badly. shocker, i know

[trainingdummyrabbit]

heavily considering picking up journaling........

[orcelito]

So I was chatting with my fellow very mentally ill queer coworker friend about mental illness (as we do) and I mentioned how I was realizing that my wildly manic depressive response to grief wasn't... normal...

& they were like 'oh my god Yeah I've been suspecting you're bipolar for a While now' bc apparently I get in... modes... where my pupils are Huge and I'm talking a mile a minute and doing 4 things at once and even my Posture is different

And then I'll come in the next day like all the life's been sucked out of me.

& she mentioned there's type 1 and type 2, 1 being the longterm episodes & 2 being them alternating on a day to day basis. And I'm just like... damng... I sure do seem to have that 2 thing...

Apparently it's not normal to alternate between manic and depressive states! Who knew!

[blossom-in]

i knew id struggle with a shared kithcne but i didnt expect to struggle this much... i dont think it helps that i dont even know who im sharing with and it seems like more than the amount of people the kitchen is for are using it? like in a i share with 2 girls i think that already know each other and are 3rd years and make food with some of their friends so the kitchen feels full and i feel way too self concious to go and make my coleslaw wrap

[tallandsad]

“you have to organize your mind” babes I have the Disorganized Mind Disease wtf do you mean

[machidielontheway]

my biggest "what would fix you right now" is sleep schedule. i love sleeping, i love being in my bed, love the feeling of blorbo rotating while comfy in my pillow. i don't mind doing the nightly routine : pee time, brushing teeth [altho this is a recent change !], filling water bottle.

what i don't like and don't manage to do is the Break : stopping the enjoyment - or the avid, compulsory search for enjoyment - and actually closing my laptop. Closing the laptop is cutting up the connection and the safety, comfort of it. connection is : i am not alone. there is people there and i can hear them, listen to them, my room is filled with the sound of people living. i am not lonely. safety is : i am finding joy and am entertained - i am not wasting my life. i do not think of things i yearn to do but lack the energy and courage for. i am fulfilled.

Closing the door and getting out of my own laid spell and having to face reality again is very hard. I do not like it and i avoid it for as long as i can sometimes, even if i am tired and would love to be sleeping. (the reality is : sometimes i am lonely and unfulfilled ; the reality is i haven't been sleeping enough for years to have the emotional energy enough to be able to make concrete steps to change this)

i could say a lot more because this subject branches out back to itself but let's just keep what was the original goal.

i wanted to speak about it to the therapist i saw for the first time a week ago, because as of now sleep is Obstacle n°1 to be resolved in my life. but i didn't really connect with her, and it was a first session so a bit hard to go directly into one specific subject. However i spoke about it to a friend the next day, and she told me how she does it and we did a little brainstorming / our discussion was such to me.

one thing i discovered about myself in the last year is that i have very little perseverance, and if there is - or if i see something as such - an obstacle i will mostly not do the thing blocked by the obstacle. The ideal solution for this is : if you can't make yourself go past the obstacle, either 1) remove the obstacle or 2) change your course. When i was in my last flat the bathroom was some way away from my room and it was old and i didn't like it. I had a hard time brushing my teeth at night and mostly never did it. a temporary solution became "i go to pee super often, let's just brush my teeth each time with water for a few seconds" and that worked quite a bit. the obstacle was going to a place i didn't like with little reward ; the solution was do the thing when you're already in there, when you didn't have a problem to go because you actually wanted to". The problem literally disappeared when i moved flats and 1) had the bathroom directly against my room again and 2) i like the bathroom and don't feel uncomfortable spending time in it. It's a great things to know this kind of things about you, because it's easier to see how to go about solving a problem.

So with my friend as we spoke about it and it finally took a shape, i thought : clearly knowing and agreeing with all those things about "capitalism doesn't give you time so you spite it with a fucked up sleep schedule to get time for you" is not helping you : it's true but you can't change that rn. But the shape of "i don't like when i close the laptop and suddenly i'm back in real life with all my doubts and feelings", that i can manage. i can make the Break less of a break. With my friend i planned two things : 1) my laptop does not go in to the bedroom, and 2) i will put on sound on my phone until i shut off the lights (i dislike going on internet on my phone so no loophole here).

It did work in parts, which is actually great. I DID feel frustrated about not having the laptop, like a real feeling of "something missing / something not in its place", but it was not big enough that i couldn't go through it, which means that i can acclimate myself to it in time ; and it was enough that i didn't feel the break too keenly. Once i was done with my nightly ablutions, i kept listening to the video (music is Not Enough so i listen to Defunctland Fastpass vid) and felt myself falling asleep after ten minutes, which is also good : it's not enough to keep me awake through my tiredness the way i can power through for hours with the laptop (yes i have f.lux), and it's easier to stop and put down because my phone doesn't represent a Door to me the way my laptop does.

Now the thing to work on is that i need to actually do this where i do get in my room at an interesting hour and not just at two am, or it makes me as sleepy but less comfortable. So while a part of a solution is present the big boss is still there : the drive and motivation to do the first step which is "now we will begin". i once thought 'when i will have my new fancy phone where i can put on more than one alarm clock, i'll put some in the evening to create Doors for me to come back to reality and make a choice - i can stay where i am, or i can decide to go to bed". This increase the chance that i manage to go to bed earlier, instead of being kept in the waters of the spell until i see the clock hitting the magic hour where somehow i will accept going to sleep (which in these days is 1:30 AM). However i did NOT put on those alarms even though i've had my new fancy phone since january. which is another mystery to think about : what makes me 'not want' to put them on ? what do i fear ? i was excited about it once, what has changed ? is there another way i can make 'coming back to it' doors that would not be from alarm clock ?

I do like having my struggles put in this form because 1) i like feeling like i'm taking concrete steps toward something, because for so so so long i've been Waiting. besides the "fight or flight" reaction there is the freeze and i'm very good at it. and action is what makes you brain calm down from Fight or Flight. 2) i love analysis (recent discovery through work) ! it's like a treasure map with little adventures you have to follow until you find the treasure. But this also means knowing / searching for how things works, so you can understand why they're not working and find a satisfactory solution or a workaround.

anyway. yeah.

[silverislander]

forgot to mention but my therapist is literally encouraging me to get adhd testing :') she really did believe me and still does, and i'm not just losing it i (almost definitely) have A Disorder holy fuck

[giantkillerjack]

just got my wife off first thing in the morning and tbh i am going into this day with a hell of a sense of accomplishment

[becca-alexa]

i understand the technological gap between generations but at what point does that gap just turn into incompetence

[yesfatchicks]

i hate the term bed rotting i am not rotting i am napping. i am enjoying snoozing and sleepytimes. i am warm and cosy and resting

[qqqqqqqqqqq0]