#if you can't do more than four arrows in clefairy pokémon stadium see a doctor

[sunspira]

the next page explains that severity of disparity between working memory deficit vs verbal cognitive strength is only seen in like 2% of adhd people. and that my verbal cognitive score was the highest that psychiatrist had seen in administering this test D:. so i got like genius level scores in verbal reasoning but baby level scores in working memory help wtf. i think that was linked to a lot of extreme instability in my mind my train of thought and instability in my life over the years and that explains the manic depressive misdiagnosis. as two intricately linked cognitive functions each on extreme ends of under and over development replicated bipolar like levels of mental disarray. one in overdrive of need for verbal linguistic stimulation and the other in massive developmental milestone deficit in working memory. working memory being anything held in your immediate direct attention and kept in place while you hold and reason with various other items with NO visual cues, just pure memory and reasoning with your minds eye? that's everything from mental math and making change in your head (help) to the clefairy ⬆️⬅️➡️⬇️memory game or the simon says toy not the game in person but that light up fucker that wants you to memorize 70 things and do them back in perfect order. to functions that underly everything from scheduling planning breaking work into appropriate sized sections transitioning between tasks time management time blindness and of course punctuality.

adhd is a combination of executive functions deficits PLUS stimulation seeking so if my verbal reasoning skills were very high and only got better as i aged it stands to reason my under stimulation and boredom in that regard would increase until i got into that exact pattern of taking on excessive workloads and high level classes and constant after school activities clubs film screenings events special lectures because learning about it was interesting and satiating novel stimulation seeking especially in verbal reasoning areas but my working memory skills were so woefully under developed i couldn't begin to set up an appropriate system to manage the work required by these advanced classes let alone the age appropriate developmental organizational planning and management skills needed to do the work required of normal classes when living outside my parents house and structure. especially if normal classes were too under stimulating and campus activities were the only good fix it would feel painful having to sit with bio101 textbooks that had gone totally stale for my stimulation hunger after doing AP bio which was just kind of my best option for stimulation in a boring small town without many friends. reviewing that old stuff was depressing compared to all aspects of other campus life was a dopamine drugmine. besides now that i finally had friends and a culturally exciting campus like socially, art wise, etc all the fun adventures and social milestones i had been sad about not having were at my fingertips so i didn't even WANT to put school before social stuff because to be fair, that was what i needed like as a human being. but i still wanted to take those interesting classes for the lectures i just didn't want to do the work or i did i just wanted time for everything. anyway that's how having an overcompensated skill in one area and stimulation and novelty seeking due to unmediated low dopamine can cause that novelty seeking to go to greater and greater extremes and resemble a manic episode especially when the other skill areas are in deficit to handle the obligations entailed and that stress and failure and shame can manifest as actual depression and so it's a pretty close replication of bipolar disorder. and if anything speaks to how my version of untreated i medicated adhd was a similar level of life chaos and debilitation experienced with bipolar.

without getting sad about stuff it was absolutely that bad for a while there and i understand why so many bipolar people commit suicide or become addicted to hard drugs end up homeless and stuff or go missing or get murdered in a hotel water tank no that's not a joke i think about her all the time. i think unmedicated severely adhd people often befall similar fates or are just mistaken as bipolar before they die since taking mood stabilizers and antipsychotics when you don't need them causes increased instability. from the darkest depression episodes that actually feels like dying to antipsychotics when you're not psychotic inducing actual psychosis and delusions. when something like dbt therapy is much more effective for reducing the unrealistic adhd thinking and adhd poor emotional regulation skills you had that was mistaken by a doctor as manic thoughts. extreme bouts of despair and unreality is enough to push anyone over the edge, but especially when already that unstable

IQ tests are dumb but i gotta admit being adhd i thought i was a little bit stupid my whole life but just good at school stuff until i was 21 and they had to test my IQ for the adhd diagnosis and the fact that it was a bit high was huge for my self esteem. i genuinely did not believe in myself like that at all i was expecting something very average. and it was healing to know that too since my ability to do school work fell off abruptly in college and thinking that was the one thing i was good at had left me was kinda more than a little scary so knowing i might have some intrinsic good parts of my brain still left was helpful to hear and healing i can't lie