#coping with ADHD

[adhd-money]

Just Diagnosed with ADHD? Here's what You Need to Know

Understanding your ADHD diagnosis is the first step toward a more fulfilling life. Discover practical advice and supportive tips below! Receiving an ADHD diagnosis as a young adult can be both enlightening and overwhelming. While it may explain many of the challenges you’ve faced, it also brings up important questions about your future. Below is a 100% free guide to help you navigate your new…

[addstrategies]

I Put Off Doing This Post But Here It Is

I’d been putting off patching my waders for months. Why?  I thought it would be too hard and take too much time. And I wasn’t sure I could actually do it. That’s “pro-crastination“, and I am indeed a pro at it. Finally, I just jumped in and got myself to do it so it wouldn’t keep hanging uncomfortably over my head. It was pretty easy and took about five minutes. When we put something off…

[scruggzi]

If I'm cooking and I need to prep vegetables I sit at the table and chop everything and put them in one or more bowls so I only have to stand for the actual cooking part. I also put compost, recycling and rubbish together so I can clear those away when I get up to cook.

I don't have a dishwasher so I run a bowl of washing up water in the sink when I start prepping so I can rinse as I go and don't have to stand at the sink which destroys my back if I do it for too long.

I dont know who needs to hear this

But I sure did:

You can and absolutely should modify the chore/self care task if it makes life easier. Sit on the floor while doing laundry. Clean dishes while in a chair. Sit in the shower.

Save your spoons. Accommodate your fatigue rather than fighting it.

[laurialark]

I've always been the type of person who needs guests over to clean. When left to my own devices, it's only a matter of time before my home looks burgled.

So I decided to try something new.

I told myself that I did have a guest over tomorrow morning - me. And more importantly, I am actually friends with her.

It was astounding how easy it was to justify all manner of tasks I had been procrastinating to this point.

"My friend is allergic to dust and cats. My home is full of dust and fur so I really need to do some cleaning tonight so she can be comfortable tomorrow."

"My friend has been struggling with her physical and mental health lately. So I really want to do something nice for her. She loves food, and she's diabetic. So the best way to make her happy is to make her something yummy and good for her health."

I came up with a whole meal plan so easily too.

"She loves eggy breakfasts so I'm going to make her a zataar breakfast hash with lots of chick peas.

For lunch, I'd like to make turkey sandwiches with baby peppers to dip in hummus. If the weather is nice, we'll go for a walk by the lake. And spend some time crocheting.

If not we'll do lunch on the balcony to enjoy some fresh air.

And for dinner, there's a local Pizzeria that we love that's about to shut down, so we're going to order one last pizza, eat a giant salad fit for kings, and have a glass of Merlot."

And as for my evening plans, it was bafflingly easy to go:

"we should play ddr because she's always wanted to try it. I got the dance mat already so all I have to do is set it up tonight."

It was incredible how much I resisted setting up my ddr mat for myself for months. Yet once I thought of doing it for something else who was having a hard time, the work was nothing.

Maybe one day, I will do things for myself as easily as I do things for others. Until then, I'm going to celebrate this win.

[littlefreya]

The ADHD struggle of needing a solution NOW otherwise the world will burn.

[sachisei]

Activities I need to Time Block

Blogging / Journaling (30 mins)

Studying Japanese (30 mins)

CSE (30 mins)

CELE (5 hours)

Taking Mental Health Resource Notes (30 mins)

Household chores (1 hour)

Watching / reading entertainment (1 hour)

Work (8 hours)

[ageremoji]

(Pos) Hand Stim emojis!

[addstrategies]

OK, So I Was Wrong

My very best wishes for you for 2024 - i mean it, in spite of everything.

[autball]

A child is having outbursts at school, or at home, or wherever else, on a pretty regular basis. And at some point, someone suggests that they need to learn better coping skills.

They suggest therapy, or maybe there’s even a special program at school. Because yes, better coping skills/self-regulation skills/frustration tolerance really would solve everything, wouldn’t it?

Well those are fine skills to have, to be sure, but more often than not, it’s not what that child (or adult) needs most. What they really need is someone to figure out what’s stressing them out so much and then do something about THAT.

Because it’s not actually weird to be distressed over distressing things. Maybe *you* don’t understand what’s so distressing about school or the grocery store or that new person in the house, but that doesn’t mean *their* distress isn’t legit.

People reeaalllly like to suggest better coping skills for autistic, ADHD, and otherwise ND folks. (Since we already have a diagnosis, it’s that much easier to locate the problem in US.) And what they’re really saying with this an awful lot of the time is, “Can you please stop being so distressed by distressing things because it’s making a lot of work for us and we’re not about to change anything for you.”

So before you put someone in some sort of therapy that will teach them that they’re wrong to be upset about the things that upset them and how to get better at pretending to be okay, maybe consider that you might be expecting them to “cope” with more than they can reasonably be expected to.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

ADHD & Emotional Flooding

Future ADHD

[structuredsucc]

So... what exactly are executive functioning supports...?

Planners, checklists, and reminders are definitely executive function supports, but they aren't the only things that are available. ...so, I've made a list of some examples. A thread (🧵)

Executive functioning includes so much, so executive function supports can be SO MANY things. Executive functions include decision making, working memory, task initiation, planning, prioritizing, many forms of self-regulation, and more.

So let's talk in broad categories

Category 1: Decisionmaking

Avoiding a decision altogether,

Choosing randomly,

Reducing the number of options to decide between,

Always doing the same decision (such as having a uniform for yourself),

Outsourcing decisions,

Having outside structure/expectations

Category 2: Working memory

Keeping things visible,

Reminders,

Collaborators who gently remind you of things,

Writing it down (i.e., notebooks, post-its, to-do lists, etc.),

External structure such as lunch hours,

Understanding why and how working memory fails

Category 3: Information processing

Avoiding weak processing areas (eg. reading for dyslexics like me)

Have information in multiple forms,

Make information processing context relevant,

Reduce incoming information or competing demands

Category 4: Task Management

Body doubling,

Transition time,

To-do lists,

Breaking tasks down (including people to help with that),

External structure for identify the next step,

clear, explicit instructions,

Schedules, planners, itineraries.

Category 5: Organization

Mind maps,

Labels, 

Notetaking templates,

Physical organizers,

Organizing methods (Kondo, Only 4 Things, etc.),

House cleaners, professional organizer, etc.

Clear bins,

An ability to toggle visibility

Category 6: Cognitive Flexibility

Transition time,

Pre-change warnings,

External support for identifying and reminding the new direction,

Context-based exemplars of similar change,

Visual schedules,

Reminders of when structure will start again

I've listed a lot of things here, but there are just so, so, so many more options.

Executive function supports can be ways that we think or approach situations (internal) or structures imposed on us by others (external). They can be physical tools that we can touch and interact with (tangible) or completely abstract ideas or approaches (intangible)

The big takeaways are that executive function supports can be any tool, structure, or communication that supports any of our executive functions.

Executive functioning struggles are core to the ADHD and autistic experiences (and secondary to other ND conditions). This means executive functioning takes a lot of energy for ADHD and/or autistic people, and the more support we have the more energy we can use for other things

So, yeah, planners, checklists, and reminders are definitely executive function supports, but so is a highschool bell schedule, hobby-related groups, professional services, and colleagues (consensually) harassing you to remember to send that email.

There are a lot of options!

[rabb1ttrash]

Anakin must be entertained at all times or else he will have... ideas...

[turns-out-its-adhd]

[zillanovikov]

Surviving under late stage capitalism is hard, especially when you're out of spoons and you're lucky if you have a plastic knife. We're here to help. 

The Sad Bastard Cookbook: Food You Can Make So You Don't Die is a community-built, vegetarian/vegan guide to getting food in your facehole when you're suffering from depression. Or other mental illnesses or physical illnesses or *waves hand generally at the state of the world* anything else. 

We've made it free on our website because life sucks enough without having to give Jeff Bezos money, but we also do have a paperback copy available for sale over there too, since we also need to eat.

https://nightbeatseu.ca/the-sad-bastard-cookbook/

[adhdanalogbrain]

BIG NEWS!

The printer proof of the ADHD Analog Brain is HERE and it is BEAUTIFUL!

I have to make some formatting tweaks to the final version. Then it will be READY for SALE: an analog brain you can hold in your hands!

More details coming soon....

[black-quadrant]

ADHD isn't silly or quirky. it can hinder productivity, create a cycle of overcommitting and overextending to keep up with life, can give rise to feelings of guilt for things like resting and overall impacts relationship health (just to name a few). it's hard to manage and it's miserable.