this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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ADHD

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A casual community for people with ADHD

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[–] Rampsquatch 223 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

That's a great way to put a positive spin on it, but be realistic. ADHD is not a super power, it's not all sunshine and roses, it is a disorder. You can sometimes harness parts of it for positive outcomes but it has a lot of negative results too.

Another thing to remember: your ADHD is not everybody's ADHD. Some people have less severe cases, others have more severe cases.

[–] [email protected] 88 points 2 months ago (4 children)

For every time you can hyperfocus on work, imagine every time you've hyperfocused on ants walking by, or a speck of dust, or literally anything other than what you actually need to do.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hyperfocus is an amazing tool, unfortunately we have no fucking control over it.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Yeah, like I dunno, I think a lot of things I do by accident with my ADHD are super cool. But it definitely hurts more than it helps, and I don't think that's just because "we live in a society". This post feels like huffing a suffocating dose of copium.

  • "Oh, sorry, I heard literally every word of what you just said, but my brain encoded nothing."
  • "My sleep schedule is casually off by like five hours because I lost track of time hyperfocusing on learning about competitive Jenga until 4 AM."
  • "I know I could have been doing things, but I had this thing I needed to be at in 8 hours, so I just couldn't focus on them."
  • "I either lose everything or create an intricate, tedious framework for where I keep everything at all times."
  • "I struggle immensely to cope with stress in a healthy way and have issues with my temper."
  • "If I can focus at all, it will be on exactly one thing, either for unhealthily long periods of time to the detriment of everything else or for so briefly that I accomplish nothing before moving on to the next dopamine rush."
  • "I have a much higher risk of substance abuse because my body is starving for dopamine."
  • "I have trouble keeping promises I've made to other people because they vanish out of my mind."
  • "I constantly miss small details and need to quintuple check everything I do."
  • "My priorities are constantly fucked, and I consistently put off everything until the last minute."
  • "It often feels physically painful for me to focus when it's not on the first thing my brain decides it wants to do."
[–] the_post_of_tom_joad 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

An awful lot of those bullets hit me

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think I can relate to literally all of them. Not competitive Jenga, but some other niche topic that I will be hyper interested for a consecutive 4 hours after midnight. I spent a whole night one time learning about roller derby and watching replays of the women's final for the past few years. I had never watched it before in my life and went all in. The men's version is not as good. They are too fast and strong, so it's more boring and less nuanced.

[–] Reverendender 1 points 2 months ago

I have a coworker on my team who does roller derby! We should talk about this in depth for several hours.

/s

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

"I constantly miss small details and need to quintuple check everything do."

This one is the opposite for me. I'm great at detail work. The stuff I miss is the glaringly obvious giant thing right in front of me.

I went to a wedding this weekend, and bought four drinks from the bar before I noticed half of the bartop was covered in two liter pop bottles I could have been pouring drinks from for free the whole time...

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I think we're describing the same tendency lol. I have a knack for recognizing problems i expect to see. There was this one job where i was like rain man, scanning qnd noting imperfections that needed to be fixed before the next process could start.

But i also can have a very hard time with complicated interlocking processes. Many times i end up overthinking the problems i do see to the detriment of something simple.

To extend the metaphor of this brain i(we?) inhabit, i am exceptional at finding things in difficult places but have the hardest time finding something right in front of me

[–] Reverendender 2 points 2 months ago

It’s SUPER hard to parse the different flavors of logical problem solving challenges. Some I can see the pattern almost immediately, others not so much. Thanks to Adderall though, I can now at least recognize this problem and begin to analyze what characteristics of the situation or problem in particular are causing my brain fog response.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've had a similar experience too. One time I couldn't find my phone, so I start looking high and low. Not in my bedroom, not in the bathroom, the kitchen... At this point, I'm turning over every stone, looking through cabinets and drawers, running out to my car to see if it's in there. Come back in and decide that it must've fallen under my bed and I just didn't hear it. Can't see under there really well, so I pull out the flashlight on my phone. Start looking under there, still not turning up. The panic is really starting to kick in.

An embarrassing amount of time passes before I realize that I'm holding and using the thing I'm looking for.

[–] Reverendender 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Apple Watch ability to instantly ping my phone has been a godsend. Wish I had gotten one sooner.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

That's me with KDE Connect on my desktop and laptop. It's sooooo nice.

[–] Jakeroxs 6 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Crap, now I need to know about competitive Jenga ...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Like watching into mirror

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

ffs literally every single bullet point applies to me (not that this is news)

Yep it sucks ass

[–] Reverendender 2 points 2 months ago

Are…are you me?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I know this is in response to a post saying your ADHD is not other people's ADHD, but I'm pretty sure your ADHD is my ADHD.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Imagine how many things that you have to do that only exist because of ridiculous social expectations on what someone else thinks is important.

Being different in a way that would work if conformity was less important shouldn't be a disability.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

exist because of ridiculous social expectations

This is called "taking other people's opinions into account". That's what a society is. If you want your opinions listened to and acted on by others, you have to reciprocate.

Do you think "neurotypical" people love dealing with random people's opinions and needs? No, but they see the value in cooperating with others to get what they want. You are "expected" to wear clothes in public because I don't know how often you bathe yourself. You are "expected" to not yell in public because if every rando yelled whenever they wanted, life would be more stressful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It puts on the colorful noose and heavy black coat in summer, or else it gets the hose again.

"How we've always done it" is stupid without reviewing why on occasion.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Please re-read:

Do you think "neurotypical" people love dealing with random people's opinions and needs?

Disliking a suit and tie isn't some revelation to "normies". You are not a radical for thinking that. In fact, all the little things that annoy you probably annoy other people too.

This is a clue to easy small talk. Just say that something annoys you. "Oh man, this suit is murder in this heat." It's easy.

Either the answer will be "Yeah man, heh" or "nah, I like it". You have now successfully engaged in small talk.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Disliking a suit and tie isn’t some revelation to “normies”. You are not a radical for thinking that. In fact, all the little things that annoy you probably annoy other people too.

So why do we need to go along with it?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You know the answer to this. Because the CEO at your company sucks but you still need the money. Many people, even those in your industry, do not wear suits at work. I guarantee it.

[–] Reverendender 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You are expected to slave away for corporate oligarchs so they can continue to in reward the rate at which their unspendable horde of dragon gold increases? You are expected to rollover and take it whilst the SJC strips away our rights and protections? I’m not trying to be an asshole or bring politics into it. I just think it might be important to point out that blanket statements about following societal “rules” might not be such a great idea.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

What do you mean? I'm totally supposed to be on Lemmy instead of working ...

[–] blockheadjt 2 points 2 months ago

That's called practice.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

All totally true! It’s definitely not great, but I try to find the silver linings rather than beat myself up about the hard parts. Good point about my ADHD being different than others’