The lighter side of ADHD
“Use a planner!” I have a stack of them! They go unused after 10 days because ADHD.
“Just make a routine!” Great! Done! The moment it gets interrupted it becomes impossible to go back to, because ADHD 😄
“You just need discipline!” My barely-functional life is the result of already more discipline than you can muster on your best day because - you guessed it - ADHD 🙃
People talking about discipline make me angry. It just feels pretentious and like and imaginary attribute to me, like wanting to feel better about not questioning tasks given
Just make a routine!
I have a routine that rivals a priest on Easter Sunday. But the best written homily doesn't undo the fact that the organist is about to start the prelude and for the life of me, I can't figure out where those damned communion wafers have gone even though I swear I just saw them!
100% this. I have routines mapped out so I don't have to figure everything out again once my mind decides it's time to let me function for a bit.
This sounds like me. I've got a spreadsheet I go through daily with sections like "morning routine," "returning routine," "essential chores," "dinner routine," etc. It's set up to turn tasks green when I complete them so I get just enough of a dopamine hit to continue. There's also a dedicated column that's basically for "you've determined this is the optimal way to do this task after countless iterations; stop trying to rethink it and just do it."
There's something so comforting about learning other people have the same struggles I do. I've had to do the same thing regarding "optimizing" my routine, which is one of my favorite ways to procrastinate.
It's the second point there that makes me think I'm not just autistic.
A routine? I've never managed to have those. What I do have is having to constantly tell myself to do something. Every. Single. Time. And if it's interrupted for some reason? Fuck me!
Dentist is a condescending jerk about my not brushing my teeth because it is a constant struggle every morning.
AuDHD is a common comorbidity. I am too - it feels like two poorly trained huskies screaming at each other in your brain.
Sending empathetic vibes your way and hope you can get some sort of support/reprieve if you want it 🩵 /gen
ADHD huskie: I need stimulus now!
Autistic huskie: Go clean the dishes that have been sitting for a week so you can enjoy yoursef!
ADHD huskie: No.
Austic huskie: Okay then sit around all day doing nothing thinking about how much you don't want to do the dishes.
ADHD huskie: fine
That is a take of the "there are 2 wolves inside you" thing I have never heard before.
I was going to say being susceptible to interruptions isn't just an ADHD thing but I forget I am AuDHD sometimes lol.
I keep trying to build a good morning routine but then garbage day happens and it's lost for the week lmao.
This is why garbage is a two person job! My husband takes the garbage to the can, and the night before, I take the can out! So I can sleep to whatever time. Cause the garbage people either pick it up at fuck early o'clock, or not until the afternoon. No one here is trying to guess, entire street puts it out the day/night before.
Oh yeah I live in the country, it would be a disaster if I did that 😬
We live in the country, and it turns out great that we don't have garbage pickup, because we also have fantastic and nearly complete recycling through a community facility that separates everything... batteries here, cream containers there, corks in this bin, foam there, electronics talk to that gal. Plus we compost or bury everything organic.
It means we pay $7 for a bag of garbage and we have to drop it off near the grocery store, but we only have one black bag every six weeks or so for a household of four.
We have curb side recycling and organics pickup (although I compost most of it at home) and they will fuck up the recycling for fun or if there is even the slightest amount of residue. I rinse out soda cans :(
Yeah we have no pickup at all so we have to take it to recycling as an errand. We the people do all the sorting there, so we have a cupboard in the carport with several blue bins and we do a big run on a Saturday usually. It's close to the village so on the errand route.
It's pretty close to a true Transition model, and evolving for the better, so I am pretty proud of it. It's truly community oriented, with a decently large free library of books and magazines, and decent jobs, and ready for the rest of the world to catch up.
The true cost of waste is always in our faces, so we wind up pretty careful about consumption.
Danged critters! Yeah, we're...close enough to suburbs that things don't go trash picking here. We're near the pine barrens, but not quite enough.
I am very disciplined when I’m in my rabbit holes.
10 whole days? Wow. I only made it to 3
As an autistic person with a lot of anxiety and some ADHD I was expected to be 'normal' and extremely patient with everyone meanwhile people typically would blow a gasket at something I would be told is no biggie if it was done to me.
Normatives are the most fucking fragile.
The number of times I have explained to doctors how their advice is great, but just not practical is astounding. And they just don't have advice that is practical for people with ADHD. They don't teach that in medical school.
I was at my primary doctor on Friday. I go about once a year because it is mentally hard to get the blood test he requested.
I told him for the first time about my anxiety and ADHD feelings. We started making a plan. After he got to the fourth thing thing I need to do I told him this many things to do makes me anxious. He could tell I became tense.
We stopped at three.
I want a t-shirt that says " yes, I've tried making a list" to wear to my next doctor's appointment.
My doctor told me to look up self help books on anazon when I told her I have issues concentrating and other stuff. She also asked for how my grades were...
Did you try exercise! What if you just go to bed earlier!
Oh why didn’t we think of the first thing everyone tells you?!?!
Here I am crying about trying to do a workout routine. I think I make it a month at most before I break a day, and then it's like this strange horror to even try to pick it back up.
I like rowing though, because the other folks in the boat make it so the childhood trauma induced need to not disappoint others pushes me to get there before them.
I've never been able to keep a regular workout schedule. I have had some success with weight lifting by just lifting when my muscles don't feel sore. If I feel like crap or too tired I rest. It's nice because it makes it easy to tell if I should exercise, just "is this muscle/my body recovered enough to work again?"
I just want you to SHOW me you care in a way you are PHYSICALLY incapable of!
My therapist will love this one! 🤣
Replace the cat with “ADHS Dad”
