#inconvenient!when I have ADHD!

[grumpyoldsnake]

It has been a year and I can confidently say that, yes, physically I feel much better having bumped back down to the minimum dose of ‘ADHD’ meds (buproprion).

But also: Good grief I miss the higher dose. I’m definitely struggling more with executive dysfunction and life management and motivation stuff. 😣

On the bright side, this minimum dose does seem to be doing fine at keeping my mood in a reasonable range, which is what I was MOST worried about with the med change. So. That’s good!

[bonefall]

Hi there, as an epileptic person I’m so happy to see your changes to Shadowsight’s character (I was SO disappointed that they removed his seizures!) and that you have a whole section dedicated to it in the medicines overview! It means so much to me to have such genuine representation. The only little note I have is that the technical term for a grand-mal seizure is “tonic-clonic,” not clonic-tonic! Other than that you have some really great and well-researched information ^^

Oh shoot, I didn't realize the order was important! Can you tell me why it should be tonic-clonic and spelling it as clonic-tonic should be avoided, so I can share?

With Shadowsight and Sorreltail, I did my research by looking at educational not-for-profits and trying to make sure to listen to firsthand accounts of what it's like to have it, so that the portrayal was more based in life than medical journals. I'm pretty sure I have an old post floating around somewhere with a bunch of sources and links, in addition to the herb guide you saw.

It really is such a shame they did that with Shadowsight specifically :/ you're not the first to pass through thanking me for putting his epilepsy back. I was recently revisiting the earlier books of TBC to answer an ask (ballooned into an essay) and, man, seeing all the setup, with what I know now, utterly wasted is just devastating.

What I mean is, in Book 1, they're describing his auras from his perspective and how there IS a difference between his seizure-visions and his Ashfur-visions. They're establishing that he DID always have epilepsy, it's just ASHFUR that's new. That was a MAJOR hint that something was wrong! The epilepsy was always part of him, but the possessions weren't!

But then, in Book 4, the team unceremoniously decides that no, it was Ashfur all along. Even the seizures. GoodBYE epilepsy! It was literally just a magic spirit.

Though the "seizures give visions" trope is a bit problematic on its own (like "Blind Seer"), I feel like it's even worse to set up representation, and then just yank it away midway through an arc. Like they couldn't just have him lose the visions but keep the seizures.

Frustrating. But, well, this is MY kitchen and I get to decide the disability rep.

[deramin2]

Misplacing the TV remote will eventually have you fruitlessly searching in places untouched by mankind for eons, and also the refrigerator.

[transmogrified-in-the-void]

Man my mom really did just hit me with like 3 super super loaded questions about my health and college, and I really did just respond by saying I'd kill myself huh

[hamishcat437]

Love when people who don't have memory issues get mad at me and tell me to "just stop forgetting things". Like wow!!! Why didn't I think of that!!!!! Really helpful and insightful advice right there!!!!

[david-watts]

I've wasted four years of my life man.

[wenamedthedogkylo]

“i shouldn’t need to present a diagnosis to expect decency from you”

a person online: i hate it when adults act like childish little freaks in public, smh. you’re an adult, you should be able to order your own food without help. get over yourself. also, why are some people, like, waaaaaaay too into the stuff that they like? omg, and the people who CLEARLY can’t even have one (1) normal conversation without acting Weird??? it’s embarrassing, u guys are embarrassing, get help

the same person five seconds later: we gotta remember to love and support the autistic community u guys <3

[chatonmagique]

Failing to be a comforming student and not being able to rest (especially mentally) is quite literally making me want to die at this point. I barely have hope for me holding a job getting any better and can't see how I can get through next year filled with internships and a minor without a lot of failure, dissapointed and angry teachers and supervisors suffering and burning out with no self esteem or hope left

[pumpkakin]

i cant wait to move and get a writing chair again

[earlgrey-dyke]

personal post in the tags! just a vent scroll on

[notrobinsomethingworse]

Okay hear me out. Batfamily, ugly Christmas sweater addition.

Bruce Wayne:

No doubt in my mind his children forced him into it. As soon as Dick mentioned wearing ugly sweaters on Christmas Day he found this monstrosity sitting in his closet. He chucked it out. He forgot about it. The next week it was back. He threw it out again. Two days passed. It was back. He tried shredding it, burning it, burying it in the backyard. It reappeared each time. Needless to say, it was still there on Christmas and he reluctantly wore it to the delight of everybody.

Jason Todd:

He wanted absolutely nothing to do with what Dick had planned… at first. Then he realised it was a great opportunity to piss Bruce off. Funny enough, it didn’t work as he hoped as Bruce was just happy he was there.

Tim Drake:

Wanted nothing to do with it and still wants nothing to do with it. Chose the first thing on the rack. Would’ve given Young Justice the chance to chose he sweater but he doesn’t trust them to NOT get him something horrendous.

Dick Grayson:

Planned this whole thing just to wear this monstrosity he found while doom scrolling on Instagram reels (he has adhd and is a millennial, he sure as hell isn’t on TikTok BUT dopamine go brrr). His siblings hate him. He loves it.

Damian Wayne:

This boy FOUGHT like one of those cats being forced into a costume. He clawed and begged and weaponised crying. Dick cackled at him until he had it on. He stayed on Dicks shoulders for the rest of the night. They did not talk for a month after.

He will stab anyone who brings it up.

Stephanie Brown:

Okay picture this in hot pink. She immediately locks onto some sort of meme when Dick mentions ugly sweaters. She finds this ugly ass sweater and steals Bruce’s credit card to get it.

Cassandra Cain:

Stephanie immediately calls Cass with plans. She happily agrees. She helps Steph steal Bruce’s credit card and proudly pulls Steph around to show the whole family their matching sweaters. A photo of them recreating the meme with their matching sweaters spreads around the web for at least a week.

Barbra Gordon:

Along with this sweater, Barbs places a USB stick containing a compilation of epic patrol failures in each of the Bat’s Christmas stockings. She wants to keep them on their toes (and adequately afraid of her). It is effective.

Duke Thomas:

Same vain as Steph. Instantly clocked in on memes and found this bad boy. Shows up with yellow temporary dye on his hair and old-lady sunglasses from the dollar store. Whenever he faces the slightest inconvenience he asks to speak to the manager. It becomes a bit where the manager changes each time and becomes crazier than the last.

Alfred Pennyworth:

Motherfucker would not wear a ugly sweater no matter how much the children begged. And the children did beg (Damian had to pull out the puppy dog eyes for this one). Jason was actually the fucker who made him cave pulling out all the stops, “it’s my first Christmas with everyone since I… you know.”, “it would be nice to have something special to remember it you know?”, “I remember my first Christmas in the manor. I just want to feel that happy again.”

Jason comes prepared with the sweater and Alfred knows he’s lost (but he doesn’t really seem to mind when he sees all the smiling faces on Christmas Day).

[sieluritari]

A lot of us with ADHD are familiar with the concept of time blindness, but for anyone who isn't: it's a neurological inability to have a consistent sense of the passage of time. If you put me in an empty room, gave me a button and told me to press it when I think it's been 15 minutes, I might press it after..... idk, anywhere between 3 minutes and 2 hours? And if we repeated it the next day the result would probably be wildly different!

But something I've only seen mentioned in one (1) Reddit post, which took some extensive digging to find, is the same effect extending to ALL things measured in numbers. Distance, weight, length, height, amount, space, volume, percentage... For me, small numbers are a bit easier, I could approximate a centimetre probably, but a metre would be much harder and 10 or 100 would likely miss the mark by a lot. Also, anything that can't be easily measured with a ruler or a measuring tape (like weight or volume) is even harder since I don't encounter reference points (like a 1kg hand weight) for those as frequently as I see visual representations of specific lengths.

It's not dyscalculia or anything like that, I'm decent at math (and the OP of the Reddit post was a math major) and I have no other difficulties with numbers, it's just a disconnect in translating real life experiences like sensory input into numbers (and possibly also inconsistent processing of sensory input? Like how the same sound volume is okay one day but hurts my ears the next?), which I think is basically the same thing as what happens with time blindness. For now I've been calling it "measurement blindness" since I've never seen a name for it anywhere, but maybe "quantity blindness" could also work?

I've talked to other people with time blindness to see if they experience this too, but so far none of them have known what I'm talking about. I'd really like to know how many of us are out there and if anyone knows literally anything actually scientific about this very inconvenient phenomenon!

Tl;dr: bc I am wordy:

It's like time blindness but for all things measured in numbers

Not dyscalculia or caused by it

Pretty much never seen it talked about anywhere

Please tell me if it sounds familiar and/or you know something about it, thank

[icarusredwings]

Thinking about Wade's Adhd and rejection sensitivity. Getting upset about inconveniences he can't control even when not mentally small, just becoming irationally overly upset over things that don't really affect much.

How he's been talking about a certain sandwitch all day long. Since noon, throughout the entire mission, and now he's yapping about it again on the 6 block walk to said sandwitch joint ran by a small immigrant family.

He keeps talking about how great it is. Logan didn't have this place in his timeline, so Wade is ampled excited to show him. Logan jokes with him how he sounds more excited to eat this sub then he is to suck dick.

Wade, with the most serious face, goes, "I can get dick anytime. They're only open 4 days a week and only from 1 to 5."

Logan notes this in the back of his mind for the future.

Just as they get there, Wade is telling Logan that they used to be open 10-5 but their daughter went to college, so now they are on their own. How these people have been so kind to him and told him that they started this shop for their daughter specifically. To give her a good life, they've been working hard to send her to college since day one.

As they roll up to the door, Wade's face drops. All of the glee and joy from his body evaporates and immediately he's just staring at the sign.

"Sorry, we're closed. Come back -" and then a small plastic clock that shown when they opened again tomorrow at 1 pm.

They're too late.

"Oh... well, that sucks." Logan mutters, hands in his pockets as he watches Wade look so utterly disappointed that even he begins to feel bad for him.

He puts a hand on his shoulder. "We can always come again tomorrow."

"B-but I...i wanted.." He starts to tear up, quickly moving to wipe his eyes, sniffling and shaking his head. "It's fine... okay.. tomarrow." He whispers, not only feeling pathetic for being so upset over a sandwitch store being closed, but now they had to walk all the way back home.

"...are you okay?"

"Yeah.. it's fine.." But it's clearly not fine. He fully understands that they were late, and thats why they were closed. He's not angry at them. He's not angry at logan either. Not even himself, really. He must have miscalculated the time. A pure mistake.

But on the way home, it's very obvious that this is a big deal. He's quiet. Staring at the ground as he walks, biting his nails, wiping a tear once inawhile.

It makes Logan frown, uncomfortable with the silence, knowing his mind was no where near silent at the moment. He knew it was turmoil in there, a loud and pouting mess.

"....do you want to get something else?"

"...no..." He whispers.

Logan observes his body language, watching how his eyes kept flickering and filling with a tear every now and again. How distant he becomes and almost... hugs himself... at one point. He knows that this is a much different response from when small him throws a tantrum or sulks. He looks as if he genuienly didn't want to be upset but just... is. As if he couldn't stop his overwhelming emotions from flooding his mind.

He takes his hand. "...is it because you wanted to show me?"

"No.. I mean.. kinda? But I just... I really wanted it."

"We can get it tomarrow?"

"I know. I can't... its hard to explain."

Logan gives his hand a squeeze, talking quietly.

"... is it a safe food?"

Wade nods, wiping another tear on his sleeve. It was one of the few things he could eat without puking. But that still wasn't why he was upset.

"Do you want me to make you a sub?"

He shakes his head. "It won't be the same."

"Im sure I can make it the sa-"

"No.. I mean... yes?? Im sorry, Peanut. It's... It's an experience thing.. I've had it in my head all day to go and get a sub from them. And now I can't check it off until tomorrow."

Oooh.. that makes sense. He had a checklist in his head. Something he needed to finish before he could go to bed. And now that this wasn't finished? He would have a hard time moving forward.

When they arrive home, Wade goes to hide in the corner of their bedroom, quiet and trying to think of something else he could do to distract his mean brain from yelling at him.

'What are you doing? You were supposed to go to the shop! Stop being lazy and just go! Come on! We've been waiting all day for this! ... Logan said he would eat a sub with us...But we were so good today...' They said.

"I know.." he muttered, putting on his headphones, hoping to drown them out.

It doesn't work. Now hes just laying in bed, rotting and staring at the ceiling while tears travel down the sides of his face. He's breathing a bit shakily.

'Why are we crying? Its just a sandwitch. It has nothing to do with the sandwich dipshit!! Are we bad..? Did we misbehave? Is that why Logan dosn't want to eat with us? Hey! Hello?? Were kind of starving here. Haven't even had anything today since breakfast. Im not hungry anymore. You're really pathetic you know that? Almost 50 years old crying over a fucking sandwitch.'

They were so loud that even with the volume up so high, he didn't hear Logan come in.

"Wade?" He waves a hand in front of him, watching as he jumps, looking up with such puffy red eyes.

"W-what?"

He puts down a plate. It's a sub.

Looking at it, he glances between him and the food multiple times, watching as Logan takes it, taking a bite and sitting next to him.

He doesn't say a word.

Now, Wade is crying for a different reason, his eyes softening as he smiles, gently leaning into him. "... Can I have a bite?"

"Of my dick or my sub?" He asks, glancing to him with a teasing look painted on his raised brow.

Wade giggles, nuzzling into his shoulder as he takes a big breath, sighing. Glancing at the door, he mutters. "Do you see this shit? And you all call me the nasty one."

Logan only smirks, a bit too proudly. "Says the guy who once-"

"Woah woah woah peanut! That's enough. This episode is rated pg. Sorry about that. God, such a potty mouth." He snickers, sitting up as Logan lets him take a bite from the end of the sub, Lady and the Tramp style.

[transmutationisms]

this is probably shaped by my limited frame of reference, but im really fascinated by witnessing the real-time development of adhd as a diagnosis. people attribute so many symptoms to it now or maybe they always did? i was wondering if you have any thoughts on what is the use of adhd specifically as a category within psychiatry. I'm esl so sorry for any confusing wording

no you're right imo; diagnostic categories are always somewhat in flux ofc but ADHD is one that has seen a particularly pronounced shift in the last couple decades. obviously this is multifactorial but my observation goes something along these lines:

'hyperactivity' has been dx'd in children since about the 1950s (also when Ritalin hit the market) but the ADHD dx doesn't really take off until the 90s (also when Adderall, a 2nd-gen reformulation of the 'obesity' drug Obetrol, hit the market). so, it's not all that surprising that 20 years later you see increased patient awareness of the diagnosis, increased popular interest in it, and shifting / expanding ideas of what it means and what ADHD 'is'. it's a relatively young dx.

part of the reason it's young is because it's basically a 'biopsychiatric' dx, meaning it diagnoses certain behaviours as being a 'brain problem' rather than having social causes or context. in practice this is complicated because psychs do use pharmacological approaches in conjunction with psychodynamic ones all the time; nevertheless, the central promise of DSM ADHD and its pharmaceutical treatments has consistently been that the ADHD subject has a physiological, neurological disorder / dysfunction / aberration, and that the drug treatments on the market fix it. that none of this is actually empirically supported is conceptually inconvenient and entrenched by the research process.

the biopsychiatric narrative is worth paying attention to because the context here is one in which it has become commonly accepted that behavioural 'disorders' and affective distress of various kinds can be, basically, either of pure biological origin, or else Your Fault. in the case of childhood hyperactivity, Your Fault historically also included Your Mother's Fault; part of the reason many mothers embraced Ritalin in the 50s and 60s was because the proffered pharmaceutical narrative explicitly challenged the idea that these mothers had done something 'wrong' to result in their (mostly) sons exhibiting disruptive and hyperactive behaviour.

this dichotomy of biology vs personal failing is very overtly present in quite a bit of discourse around ADHD today. if it's my brain being 'wrong' or different, then it's not something I've done wrong but a disease with a simple chemical fix. in this context I don't think it's surprising at all that a lot of popular and patient conceptions of ADHD have seen a considerable widening over the past few decades. often people like to blame this on pharmaceutical companies, and it's true that industry benefits from these discourses and frequently invests in them (eg, via instruments like ADDitude mag). however, that's a pretty simplistic explanation on its own and doesn't really account for the ways in which patients and potential patients also find this diagnostic category personally useful, for reasons ranging from identity-formation to the desire to access prescription amphetamines. ADHD increasingly shows up as a biologised explanation for behaviours ranging from 'eating too many sweets' to 'postural sway' and so on. you can see in such examples how invoking the idea of an aberrant ADHD brain is both reassuring to people who have been made to feel ashamed of certain behaviours, and provides a sense of shared identity and community with others.

all of this is to say: I don't find it surprising at all when I see a relative broadening of notions of ADHD, almost always expressed in biological terms (the 'ADHD brain' operates differently, 'seeks dopamine', causes this or that). ADHD is in some ways a particularly blatant distillation of this general trend in popular psychiatric discourses, for reasons relating to expectations about childhood and child behaviour, and the historical and present relationship between the ADHD label and the regulation of amphetamines. but much of what's happening with ADHD in terms of popular discourses about it can also be seen with many, many other psychiatric diagnoses, to varying extents and in various ways.

my experience writing about ADHD on this website leads me to close by explicitly stating the following: I do not think any ADHD behaviours / symptoms are people's 'fault' or an individual failing; I do not think using drugs for any reason is morally bad or needs to be justified; the fact that I do not think ADHD is a 'brain disease' does not mean I think people are 'making it up' or exaggerating wrt any difficulties they experience personally, professionally, emotionally, &c.

[lastoneout]

As much as my ADHD has made my life absolute hell at times and I truly wish I had been diagnosed sooner...as I unpack my past in therapy I've realized my undiagnosed ADHD actually did do me one HUGE favor.

Bcs without getting too into it my response to the specific way I was raised and the trauma that came with it was to make myself smaller. A lot of kids in my situation would have just lashed out, but I just started cutting bigger and bigger bits of myself off because I thought if I wanted attention or affection then I needed to be perfect and normal and not even the smallest burden or inconvenience to the people around me, and I fell so hard into that mentality that part of healing has legit been trying to like get back in contact with who I was before all that made me into someone I wasn't.

Which is hard, but not impossible, because during all that trauma no matter how hard I tried to shove everything "ugly" and "imperfect" about myself into a tiny little box where no one would ever see it until I was the perfect daughter, I couldn't quite manage to get all of me in there, because my ADHD wouldn't let me.

And as I was growing up I saw this as a bad thing, obviously. Like I didn't know it was ADHD at the time ofc but I knew that my impulsiveness and loud ass laugh and distractability and habit of talking too much to fast and struggle to shut the fuck up about whatever weird thing I was into were parts of me I could never seem to fully change. No matter how hard I tried to be quiet and have normal interests and stop doing impulsive shit like talking really loud or going off about an interest I know no one around me shared, I couldn't actually do it.

So now, looking back with a healthier frame of mind, with a fiancé who became interested in me bcs we shared one of my "weird" interests, who smiles and laughs and tells me he loves me when I get loud and passionate about things I care about, who loves my loud ass laugh so much that once after I was sick and didn't laugh for like a week the first time I did went "oh good, I missed that sound", I can see at least a bit of good in the ways my ADHD stopped me from being able to destroy myself completely for the sake of others.

More often than not my ADHD was a huge rock tying me down, but it turns out deep inside that rock was a geode protecting the things about myself that I used to hate but now love more than anything, and now that the rock is smaller and easier to carry I can be thankful for that.

[endivinity]

I've been diagnosed with ADHD-inattentive! It's clinically mild. It wasn't picked up in childhood because I was a gifted kid who wasn't disruptive or fidgety, or doing otherwise vastly inappropriately-timed behaviour outside of the usual for my age group, and then when it started presenting in later high school years I got the classic 'has potential, just needs to focus. Unfinished projects' in my reports, but because I wasn't fidgety or majorly disruptive it just got sort of sidelined. I fell between the cracks. But I think that's just the done thing, for people like me. Not severe enough to be noticeable, or the symptoms are managed (with a lot of hidden difficulty), or you're not enough of a compelling case (trying to get government assisted work placement failed, back when it was just the sleep disorder) - just mediocre, a mild inconvenience, your strengths prevented from being fully reached because they don't like all the issues of your deficits. which for me is in administrative stuff, as evidenced by never replying to emails :'D And then people sort of wonder why you're not doing everything they think you can. Believe me, we fucking know. We're frustrated too. There's a special kind of grief that comes with that, being left behind because you exist in a middle ground of expectation and disappointment, that I think I have to make peace with as I move forward with this. I'm 31. I've lost nine years to struggling between my degree and now. It wasn't all bad, but it's one of those things where I can't help but wonder how different it could've been if I'd known earlier. So what happens from here? I dunno. I'm being put on a trial run of meds and I have to properly handle my life balance since it's very easy to neglect your health when there are no outside pressures to do otherwise. more than anything I want to finish those five-year-old commissions that are still outstanding. Every time I open the files I get anxious and it really, really fucking sucks for everyone involved. From there, who knows?