#i wish i was born without adhd and i wish adhd medication didn't help me so i didn't have to deal with this lol

[transfusible]

complaining and yapping under the cut.

I got yelled at by a pharmacist on the phone lol. she didn't answer any of my questions & I still don't know what's going on with my medication that i am out of.

I have never and will never raise my voice or get personally angry at someone working with customers. I'll admit, though, that I did lose my composure, start to cry, then hung up on her mid-sentence out of embarassment for crying. I regret hanging up mid sentence, but I do not want to be spoken to like that.

[ilikeyoshi]

i hope it's okay to offer my thoughts on discussions like this around how "seriously" we (people with adhd) take adhd! i wanted to preface by saying that everything here is completely true and, despite what i'm going to say following this, it is completely valid and understandable if you hate your adhd, wish you didn't have it, consider it a burden or a danger or just a generally negative element of your life, etc. but i also hope what i'm going to say helps those who feel that way understand a side of the adhd experience i don't see acknowledged much, and i'm not sure if it's just not occurred to people or if they disagree or so on, but whatever the reason, i hope it is at least insightful or interesting, if not helpful in some way.

like op describes above, i have "severe" adhd, to the extent that it is genuinely very difficult to take care of myself. i have had multiple medical troubles, such as UTIs, because of how hard it is for me to remember to use the bathroom. my adhd is so severe i literally cannot keep any kind of traditional job, even medicated. it's just impossible for me to keep up with deadlines and schedules; i will either miss them, or i will make myself sick meeting them because of how mentally and physically taxing it is to monitor my time. there are countless other things i could say about how my adhd negatively impacts my life, but i hope you get the gist.

despite all that though, i do not think negatively of my adhd, and i even think quite fondly of it. for me, this is an expression of self-love. i was born with it (as is everyone with adhd), it's literally just the code my brain runs on; it defines everything about my identity and personality. if i didn't have adhd, i would fundamentally be a completely different human being. i'd be unrecognizable from the person i am because i have adhd. to hate my adhd is to hate myself, and that is an incredibly real struggle to have, and i'm not at all trying to say people can and should just 'stop doing that'—but it's a piece of my puzzle that helps me navigate what i ACTUALLY hate, what i ACTUALLY would change.

the problem, for me, is not my adhd—it is a completely neutral factor—instead, my problem, the source of all my suffering, is that i live in a society that does not accommodate people with brains like mine whatsoever. the world is, quite literally, not built for adhd brains, and thus is not built for me. what makes adhd disabling is the fact that i am not only misunderstood, but treated as 'wrong' or 'broken' because i am, essentially, a square trying to fit through a circle hole. nothing is 'wrong' with me; i am simply unable to utilize the tools around me because they were not made for me to be able to use.

i focus on this distinction because i find it more constructive and useful. it allows me to be kind to myself and forgive myself for a situation that is completely not my fault, while still acknowledging that there is a problem that i need to continue doing my best to improve. i do not think kindly of my adhd because it's mild or doesn't impact me very much, nor do i think my mindset absolves me of any and all responsibility in any given situation—but i DO think kindly of my adhd for a couple reasons.

the first is, obviously, it will never go away. it will always be a part of me, because without it, i would literally not be me. it does not benefit my health, situation, happiness or really anything at all to hate my adhd (but, i want to stress, i do not at all believe it is a failing of anyone who DOES hate their adhd—as op said, everyone's experience is different, including how we internalize that experience, and i'm not at all here to tell anyone how they "should" feel about that experience either). i've had depression for more of my life than not, and one of the hardest things i had to learn in recovering from that is that hating myself, punishing myself, etc does not get me any closer to being a version of myself i will like more. it kinda just... reinforces hating myself, if that makes sense. if i only ever practice hating myself, i will get really good at, well, hating myself.

which ties into the other reason i intentionally think kindly of my adhd: hating it will not make it easier to live with. again, every person's relationship with their adhd is EXTREMELY complicated, and i'm not trying to shame people who DO hate their adhd—your journey is your own and it is not at all my place to tell you how you should walk it. everything i'm saying is stuff i have worked a very long time on coming to, and is stuff i have found the most helpful to me navigating adhd and the world i live in. i mainly bring it up because i usually see people frame those who are neutral or even positive about their adhd as having mild cases, lacking accountability, and generally just, to me at least, giving the impression that they believe you can't healthily, ethically just like your adhd (which, as i explained, to me is intrinsically linked with liking my brain or liking myself). it's a very understandable perspective, i think, because having adhd in a non-adhd world is VERY hard, and i totally see how a perspective like mine might just... not cross anyone's mind, especially those who DO have a lot of negative feelings about their own adhd. that's totally okay; that's why i wanna talk about it, in the hopes it helps bridge that gap.

it's incredibly important to discuss how adhd impacts us—again, as op explained, having adhd can be extremely disabling and even dangerous. i don't disagree with or intend to argue with anything op has said, as it's all 100% true and needs to be understood and accepted, for the literal health, safety and happiness of adhd people. i just noticed some things that i wanted to offer my own perspective on, mainly because it HAS helped me to frame these things the way i do, but if nothing else, just for the sake of hopefully being kinda interesting at the very least.

if there were anything i wanted to explicitly take a stance on, it'd be this: regardless of how we feel about our adhd, it IS true that the world we live in COULD be more accessible to us, and isn't. i especially want non-adhd people to hear that, because i want them to understand that the struggles we face are not self-imposed—we do not do this to ourselves out of irresponsibility nor misunderstanding. we are disabled by the society we live in. nearly all of my struggles could be improved, if not erased completely, if people were not expected to be things adhd people fundamentally are not, and i believe this is true of adhd as a whole. we are not broken or lazy; we are square pieces being expected to fit in circle holes. the solution, in my humble opinion, is not to find a way to make us circles, but to provide us with square holes (as well as continue providing circle holes, because some people ARE circles too).

Like I know we all love making ADHD seem cool but like, don't forget it's actually a disability? My ADHD is bad enough I've nearly been evicted for forgetting to mail the rent check to the property manager, I've forgotten to pay the utility bills and had my water or power get turned off or had to pay fines bcs I missed a credit card payment. Once I was supposed to cat sit for a friend and I lost the house key she gave me but didn't realize until she was already out of town, and she had to call the apartment office to get someone to give me the spare so her cats would have food for the week. When I'm unmedicated I can't even get myself to shower half the time, forget eating or cleaning. Before I started living with my fiance I'd just like, not eat for days because I didn't have anyone to remind me to eat or go buy me food. I've forgotten to turn the stove off so many times and ruined kettles and tbh been DAMN fucking lucky the house didn't burn down. I've done stupid, impulsive shit that's nearly gotten me KILLED. I can't remember to close the shower curtain reliably even through my fiance points out every single time I forget, and he's almost out of soap rn bcs for the last MONTH neither of us have been able to remember to order more once we get out of the shower.

I've had such bad memory my entire life that to this day someone suggesting I forgot something because I simply didn't care enough is a legitimate trigger that, in the worst cases, makes me have a breakdown.

I get that for some of you this is just something that makes studying hard or you forget to take a pee break when you're playing Minecraft or whatever, that's still a valid struggle and you do deserve help and understanding, but like, ADHD is a disability. It's disabling. It's not impossible to improve and learn coping skills, meds help a lot, there are great accommodations out there(LIKE CLEANING SERVICES), but not every case of ADHD is the same, and a lot of them are pretty ugly ngl, and just because you managed to do something doesn't mean someone else is gonna be able to manage it too, or that they're being lazy for struggling. And that obviously doesn't mean ADHD people have a free pass to never work on themselves and make everyone cater to their every need or whatever, but we do deserve some understanding when we explain that our disability is actually disabling in ways that aren't palatable to you. So like, idk, maybe don't immediately recoil in horror when you find out that someone with ADHD can't keep their house clean. And for fucks sake don't ridicule them for it.

[menacetosocietyy]

Semi-heavy word vomit-vent-info dump thing ahead. Did this on my phone so apologies in advance.

Today I learned that people with my disorder likely experience emotions more intensely than anyone else (generally).

In my poetry, I often express/describe feeling my emotions in extremes, so I mean... it makes sense. Yet part of me is defeated by this confirmation; I'm not quite sure why-

I'm just so burned out today from college and likely other stressors like being threatened to get kicked out again for getting food poisoning and I basically am failing college currently, plus some other more personal things, along with likely needing to get checked for autism and an ED.

I guess a part of me does desire to be "normal." Not traumatized, neurodivergent, and mentally disabled because maybe then I wouldn't be struggling so much. I could have a job and be in school at the same time without having a breakdown, I could push myself to do what I need to without medications, I could live life without needing to fixate on things like fictional universes/characters to not lose my marbles, I could express and manage my emotions properly.

I am grateful to be able to relate the groups of people that I can because of my disability, disorders, and trauma. It's given me the ability to make so many different kinds of connections, help people, and be a better person myself. I'm grateful for being born into a home that got me therapy when I needed it and I credit that to likely the largest chunk of who I am today, but if I am part of the group that feels emotions to the most extreme, and we do it basically on a day to day basis? Fuck dude, ADHD is already known to cause imbalance in emotions, impulsiveness, destructive behaviours- all the things in common with borderline.

Did I just get double-fuckin-whammied??

I would not wish the pain I can feel on anyone (except abusers and pedos and grapeists and-). It is so frustrating to constantly have your mood fluctuating or just randomly be numb for however long when you so desperately want to feel something good AND stable, not just a stable mood of emptiness.

Then, to have people point it out because of concern when you didn't even know you were doing something like changing moods so quickly... it's humiliating for me. They say that the disorders should not be our entire personality, yet they affect literally every aspect of our personalities. How are they not??

Did I mention how fucking TERRIBLE humiliation is?? I can't even put into words right now how much I LOATHE being humiliated and/or ashamed. It causes me to physically twitch and make little noises or whistle. I hate it.

Anyway

Of course, since I get the LOW lows, I also get the HIGH highs... it's probably why I, and so many others, write about love so much. It's such an intense, raw, euphoric, and disastrous feeling.

The human emotions, to me, are probably the most beautiful thing in the world and they fucking suck.

[willowlark369]

Competition Drama 02

Judge: ADD and ADHD are also not a mental illness, they are a Learning Difficulties. There is a difference. I understand that to those that don't work in that area, or deal with those with Learning Difficulties, it seems like the same thing, however, it isn't. People with Learning Difficulties have fought to be seen for who they are, and not to be treated like something to be fixed. Children with Autism, ADHD, Downs Syndrome, they were all born that way, it's who they are. When sites or people claim some of these are mental illnesses it's due to being part of the medical model of disbaility, which is out dated and doesn't consider the individuals. I'm going to stop myself from preaching, I have worked in this area all my working life, so it's something I feel very strongly about. If you want to understand the difference you can look at the MENCAP website.

Me: People are also born with bipolar disorder, OCD, and schizophrenia. When you preach that some neurodivergences aren't mental illnesses, you ignore the difficulties that they present for individuals with them. There's a significant difference between autism and Downs Syndrome. One is a mental illness and the other is a chromosomal disorder that affects the whole body. The fact that you lump them in together and claim to be a professional is very worrisome to me. I wouldn't want someone who would do that to work with either my kid or me.

------------------ Taken into PMs ---------------------

Judge: I didn't want to continue this on the forum. I don't want you to think that I am having a go, because I am not. What is being talked about it actually quite contravercial in the area caring for those with learning disabilities and Autism. You seem fairly bothered by what I am saying, so I won't continue and try to 'make you see things my way'. I will say that what I have been taught is based on what people with those sorts of disorders and conditions believe about themselves and wish other to see them as. It is also not medically correct to say that it is a mental illness and this group of people dislike that assumption.

I can tell that you care, and I hope you can tell that I care too. I think that is enough for us to get along?

Me: I'm sorry, but if you want to believe that a mental illness is not a mental illness when medical professionals and individuals with the condition understand that it is, I cannot believe that you are not "having a go" or that you care. This is not a topic where "agreeing to disagree" will work. You (and by extension, the Competition) are telling me and other autistics that we do not have a real mental illness and are just incapable of growing past a certain point. You are infantizing us. The fact that you feel that you cannot say this in public also says that you know that there's something wrong with it. I've had this discussing with the Admin as well: There should be no hidden discussions. If you want to make a ruling that is contrary to reality, fine, but own what you are doing and be consistent. If you cannot accept one mental illness as what it is, then you shouldn't accept any of them. If your reasoning is that a person is born with autism and that's why it doesn't count, then none of the conditions that people are born with (ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia) should count. But don't make a claim that is not true and frankly, insulting, and then get upset when people call you on it.

Judge: I am really sorry that I have upset you. I can assure you, I mean no disrespect at all, and I speak from my experiance as person that works in the united kingdom with a whole range of children with various difficulties. I have worked with those with Autism too, though I do not consider it to be a learning difficulty, though I can see where it looks as though I have 'lumped' them together. I just happen to be a care worker that works with children with a range of conditions.

I am wondering if actually this is more to do with the countries that we live in? I don't know where your from, but in Britain, it's seen as politically incorrect. Based on neurological conditions and psychiatric conditions. Mental illness is seen as psychiartirc condition whereas as far as I have been taught in my own professional capacity, that Autism is Neurologial. In britain it is most definately something I would actually get in trouble for stating in the work place - as children with autism do not have psychiatric condition. If you are still unhappy with my explanation of myself and my words I can only apologise and research this myself further, I would not want to offend or hurt anyone - it's really not in my nature. I can honestly say that I am very upset that I seem to have caused offense or hurt through what I have said. Having heard your point of view, I take it seriously, and I mean no offense - seriously. I can tell that I have upset you, and for that I am sincerly sorry.

As for you thinking I am 'having a go' I assure you that I am not. I have spoken to you politely and respectfully, even if views differ. I can understand now that this is a senstive topic for you too, and I hope that you understanding where I am coming from with the term 'mental illness' and what it means where I am from, you can see that I don't mean to disrespect or belittle anyone. I only took the conversation of Forum as I thought it was senstive and I wanted to be respectful. That is my intention

Me: It might be a terminology issue. In the US, a mental illness is any condition which originates in the brain; affects the perceptions; and interferes with the ability to perform everyday activities (especially necessary social, work, or family activities). One would not assign a neurologist to the treatment team of an autistic, even though a neurologist may be brought in to rule out other potential causes of the symptoms. A psychiatrist would be, however, given that autism is often comorbid with other conditions which require medication and the autism often creates unique challenges in the individual being treated. A psychiatrist would also be the person giving the diagnosis of autism, which makes it a psychiatric condition, even if there aren't any other conditions diagnosed at the time of the initial diagnosis. A neurological condition would something like epilepsy or migraines. Basically, something which affects the way that nerves (including the ones in the brain) communicate with each other.

I apologize if I came across as too aggressive, but literally everything in my life has taught me that I cannot let things like this slide without speaking up. In order to get any kind of accommodation, one must be prepared to push against people dismissing the need for them, often by using the same language that you did. Years of advocacy work has also shown that a lot of people have misconceptions about what the real dangers surrounding individuals with various neurodivergences are. There is a negative connotation given to the term "mental illness", due to decades of villainization of psychiatric conditions. For that reason, a lot of people have pushed for use of the term "neurodivergence", "neurologically divergent", or "atypical neurology".

I really feel if you (and the competition as a whole) wanted to show sensitivity on the topic, then you would not have included it in the first place. There is a lot of discourse going on concerning how to respectfully handle representation in writing and there are entire blogs dedicated to how to handle that. I would love to see more encouragement to include accurate representation in writing, but what I do not wish to see is exclusion of smaller groups within a larger group on the basis that they aren't "really" a part of the larger group. That kind of gatekeeping is not helpful to anyone in need of that representation.

Judge: You should never apologise for taking these things and speaking up! I think it's great, and I have learnt something here, something I am greatful to have learnt. I would say you were defensive - in a good way! I would hate to make anyone feel like that they needed to defend themselves, or a group. Part of my job is pushing for things on the behalf of children, so I understand. I work specifially with children in the care system who don't have parents to fight for them. If you hadn't pushed, I wouldn't have learnt something that will change how I relate to people.

I can concour that the term 'mental illness' has negative conotations for people in the UK - in fact a lot of medical terms are deemed inappropriate. I think this is because culturally, people in this country have used many medical terms as insults and thus the meaning becomes intirely different. This isn't just in relation to Autism, many areas. I guess this could answer to why I was a little defensive also.

I do think that The Competition wanted to show sensitivity. I was not on board as Admin when the rounds were thought up, but as far as I am aware one of the Mods has experiance of this, and I can only assume that they would have wanted this to be used in a senstive and positive way. As I gather it's a subject of great importance to them too, from another angle.

If you have any ideas that you think would be beneficial for future rounds, something you think would be both positive and respectful, by all means mail them across. I am sorry if you feel that the competition didn't wish to be respectful. I cannot speak for everyone, but as for me, I respect you a lot, it takes courage to speak out in a public forum like that.

----------------------- Later ------------------------

Judges: [proceeds to extract revenge against the team as a whole for protesting]

Me: Yeah. "Courage" is needed alright.

Team: [proceeds to write submissions centered around their complaints with the judges] Suck on these lemons!

[eds-zebra-warrior]

2021 Ehlers Danlos Society Awareness Month (Day 17 Prompt: Childhood)

This was discussed in many of my other posts but I will discuss it a little more here. Though I was born to the perfect parents for me I did not have a perfect childhood. I have a half brother and sister which played a roll in making things a little more difficult. Also being a child that was sick, spending decades seeking a diagnosis going through decades of medical abuse and neglect made life much different for me than most. Bullying had an impact on my life due to my delay in diagnosis. All of these combined sculped my childhood and made things a bit more complicated and a little less picket fence of a lifestyle.

I was born premature, requiring my first surgery at four days old and being diagnosed with a heart murmur. I had a brother who passed away before I was born and a half brother and half sister who were very irresponsible and wild to say the least. Between my health issues and my siblings I was forced to grow up very quickly. I went to custody hearings for my siblings who had a mother with multiple mental illnesses and would only take her meds when a court hearing was coming up and other times was an addict who was also Schizophrenic and Bipolar and would hallucinate about the swat showing up, telling my siblings to hide the drugs and so on. They preferred living with their mob because they had zero structure in her household but since their mom would take her medication before court hearings and have the kids lie, which they would because they liked not having to go to school, bathe or have any rules, my dad was unsuccessful at getting them from their mom.

They did however get mad on and off and demand to move in here, until they found out they had to go to school, do their homework and couldn't run the streets only to go back home. Every time they came they were riddled with lice, especially my sister and after allowing them to come into the house several times after my sister denied having lice and blamed it on dandruff or something which resulted in her spreading them to me since she shared my room when she was here, my mom had to start putting a chair out in the driveway and do lice treatments on them before they were allowed to enter the house so though my parents kept me clean I developed anxiety at quite a young age about lice which I still carry to this day. My brother was cleaner than my sister but he had ADHD and a very bad temper. I would watch him literally kick my mom in the face and try to beat her up as a kid. When I was four years old he was 12 and took me behind a pine tree in our back yard and beat me. This was the first time he went to juvenile detention.

His criminal record continued from there. It started with more minor things like petty theft but soon escalated to multiple counts of rape, cashing social securety checks of senior citizens and the list went on. He also became an addict using things such as meth and heroin. My sister resorted to a life of living off of the government and sugar daddies. She would go on welfare for 36 months and when they cut her off she learned quickly that if she got a job and worked for a month or two, just until the government started garnishing her wages, she would stop showing up, the job would fire her and she could sign up for welfare for another 36 months. She had kids but was never really mother material, letting them essentially raise themselves and still moving in and out of my parents house and coming for holidays saying she didn't have any money for gifts for the kids while amazon packages were rolling in with lingerie, promiscuous clothing and electronics for herself. During highschool I helped my mom raise her youngest which taught me a lot of responsibility but also another reason I grew up so quickly.

Now I’m going to back up and explain the health and social aspects of my life. After my first surgery at 4 days old it was pretty apparent to my mom that I wasn’t the perfectly healthy baby the hospital told her she had. Growing up I had chronic pain and was sick all the time. I caught pretty much everything going around and had strep more times than I care to think about. My mom brought my pain up to the doctor when I was 5, telling him that I have talked about my back hurting since basically I could talk. He didn't believe it so I grew up just assuming everyone felt like I did and it was normal to be in pain so never really said anything about it to anyone but my parents so I honestly don't know what it's like not to be in pain. I don't know what pain free feels like. It's just something I don't think I have ever experienced. It used to be tolerable but it has always been there.

I was also really clumsy to the point that all throughout school to the point that my gym teachers always took notice. I was the kid with glasses, for a year, braces never grew from the age of two to the age of 12 and started putting on weight in my later childhood, passing out like a goat, hand learning disabilities and was picked on by the main bully of the school so badly that my own friends became afraid to associate with me at school afraid they would be picked on too. I got beat up so badly that I got one and possibly two traumatic brain injuries from the same kid. I eventually was pulled out of the school.

When I switched schools my popularity swung the opposite way and I also finally started to grow and lose a lot of my weight. Unfortunately this is about the same time I believe my gastroparesis started really flaring up. A lot of my peers started believing I was anorexic because I didn't want to eat because it hurt too bad to eat. It wasn't that I thought I was overweight or anything. This was around my 7th grade year and going into the 10th grade I weighed 79lbs so I was probably around that or a little less. I was very thin and maybe about 4’9” in the 7th grade and 5' in the tenth grade. Anyhow I knew I wasn't overweight by any means and was skin and bones but it hurt so bad to eat that eating wasn’t enjoyable. I also had a lot of GI issues and believe at this time I was still in colonics to avoid having my intestines resected. My mom took me to a lot of doctors who blew me off and made it sound as if I’m just a kid so probably making my symptoms up for attention.

I finally got a new GP that year who looked at me and knew exactly what was wrong telling me I had celiac disease. He sent me for my first barium swallow which was absolutely disgusting and miserable as I got an intestinal blockage from the barium, he ran an Elisa test, sent me for my first colonoscopy and did an IgG/ IgA test which back then was very new and cost $500 to send my blood to Florida to be tested for allergies between all of them I had celiac disease and 17 other food allergies. I saw a nutritionist who said basically they didn't know what to tell me because I had too many allergies but I eventually figured it out and some of them luckily I only had to go a year without before I was able to trial them again to see if my GI system had healed enough from how severe my Celiac Disease was to be able to tolerate them again. I am still allergic to all of them but at least now I can tolerate a lot of my allergies in moderation but there are a few I will never be able to have again.

High School was when the real problems started. I started having a lot of chest pain, trouble breathing, and was in and out of the hospital. I started having cardiac arrests and seizures which is when the really serious medical abuse and neglect took off, I was sent home from hospitals told noting was wrong even after a cardiac arrest. During this cardiac arrest my mom had to resuscitate me because the nurses refused to come to the room when the alarms went off believing that I had simply pulled off my leads for attention. This happened all the way through high school with no reason why until eventually someone listened when I was 23.

My childhood was different than some may have experienced. I was socially awkward and had a lot of quarks, some embraced them and some hated them. I was bullied terribly at my first school, extremely popular at my second school and fell right in the middle of the two at my third school so it allowed me to get a lot of different perspectives and if there was anything to take from my first school, it was not to be that bully and allowed me to make friends with a wide range of individuals. My childhood may have been complex but I have no regrets. Sure there are things I wish were different such as the influence my siblings had on me which made me so uptight about following rules to avoid being like them and getting diagnosed much sooner but definitely no regrets.