The amount of people I go on a date with and tell them I’m ADHD and they follow with, “me too” when they are obviously not, is crushing. I’m glad my learning disability is fun to cosplay for you. The juxtaposition of people I meet in wild and tell them I’m ADHD and they are like, “Oh what’s that like?” as they’re looking for the lost keys in their left hand or leg stemming, feels… curious.
If I could snap my fingers and not have ADHD I’d do it. People think ADHD is just being scatterbrained and hyperactive and think its at best quirky and at worst annoying but a lot of the hallmarks of ADHD cause a lot of suffering just existing in society. eg. executive dysfunction/impulsivity, emotion dysregulation (seemingly feels like your emotions are harder to control which is part of the rejection sensitivity), difficulty building and maintaining relationships, difficulty holding jobs, being unable to quiet your thoughts late at night (80% of us have insomnia/delayed sleep patterns to one extent or another) and being very prone to boredom that can often feel almost physically painful.
And of course, society treats you as if your personality is shit because what people see is someone forgetting things, making bad snap decisions and generally being annoying. So a lot of us dont think highly of ourselves because thats often how we are conditioned. To think we are lazy, uncaring, annoying and thoughtless/impulsive.
I’ve also got ADHD, so I understand the struggle. But personally I think ADHD has a lot of upsides as well. People with ADHD are often really fun to be around, they have often really different perspectives on the world and see things that other people don’t, and tend to take everything in their stride. ADHD people in my experience are better at out-of-the-box thinking, handling stressful and chaotic situations, and extremely capable when they’re interested in something.
The reason that ADHD feels debilitating is because capitalist society forces us to conform with neurotypical behaviour, because conformity is more important than outcomes. If ADHD people were allowed to work their to own schedules, and allowed to focus mainly on tasks which interest them and offload things that they find boring/tedious, it would go a long way towards getting the best out of people with ADHD. If it’s handled well, they can easily outperform neurotypical coworkers, it’s just very much about harnessing the chaotic energy that we have.
I’m alarmed at the amount of people I met, mostly women, who are like upset when I tell them I’m not autistic. It’s like they want me to be or something. They insisted I needed to get tested to be sure.
Like what is with these people wanting this to be common and wanting to get people join in like its a club? It’s a genetic trait. You either have it or you don’t I thought.
If multiple people seem surprised that you’re not autistic and encourage you to seek diagnosis, I dunno, maybe there’s something there? Are you a woman yourself?
Well I had the luxury of dating a psychologist who specializes in diagnoses and her brother is autistic - so she is very aware of autism and how it works and what it looks like in different people.
When I told her that random autistic girls from my comm were making this assumption she gave me the biggest eye roll and a laugh. Because duh, I’m not autistic.
This feels like the correct answer.
The amount of people I go on a date with and tell them I’m ADHD and they follow with, “me too” when they are obviously not, is crushing. I’m glad my learning disability is fun to cosplay for you. The juxtaposition of people I meet in wild and tell them I’m ADHD and they are like, “Oh what’s that like?” as they’re looking for the lost keys in their left hand or leg stemming, feels… curious.
If I could snap my fingers and not have ADHD I’d do it. People think ADHD is just being scatterbrained and hyperactive and think its at best quirky and at worst annoying but a lot of the hallmarks of ADHD cause a lot of suffering just existing in society. eg. executive dysfunction/impulsivity, emotion dysregulation (seemingly feels like your emotions are harder to control which is part of the rejection sensitivity), difficulty building and maintaining relationships, difficulty holding jobs, being unable to quiet your thoughts late at night (80% of us have insomnia/delayed sleep patterns to one extent or another) and being very prone to boredom that can often feel almost physically painful. And of course, society treats you as if your personality is shit because what people see is someone forgetting things, making bad snap decisions and generally being annoying. So a lot of us dont think highly of ourselves because thats often how we are conditioned. To think we are lazy, uncaring, annoying and thoughtless/impulsive.
I’ve also got ADHD, so I understand the struggle. But personally I think ADHD has a lot of upsides as well. People with ADHD are often really fun to be around, they have often really different perspectives on the world and see things that other people don’t, and tend to take everything in their stride. ADHD people in my experience are better at out-of-the-box thinking, handling stressful and chaotic situations, and extremely capable when they’re interested in something.
The reason that ADHD feels debilitating is because capitalist society forces us to conform with neurotypical behaviour, because conformity is more important than outcomes. If ADHD people were allowed to work their to own schedules, and allowed to focus mainly on tasks which interest them and offload things that they find boring/tedious, it would go a long way towards getting the best out of people with ADHD. If it’s handled well, they can easily outperform neurotypical coworkers, it’s just very much about harnessing the chaotic energy that we have.
god that sucks to hear.
I’m alarmed at the amount of people I met, mostly women, who are like upset when I tell them I’m not autistic. It’s like they want me to be or something. They insisted I needed to get tested to be sure.
Like what is with these people wanting this to be common and wanting to get people join in like its a club? It’s a genetic trait. You either have it or you don’t I thought.
If multiple people seem surprised that you’re not autistic and encourage you to seek diagnosis, I dunno, maybe there’s something there? Are you a woman yourself?
Well I had the luxury of dating a psychologist who specializes in diagnoses and her brother is autistic - so she is very aware of autism and how it works and what it looks like in different people.
When I told her that random autistic girls from my comm were making this assumption she gave me the biggest eye roll and a laugh. Because duh, I’m not autistic.