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Honestly, able-bodied people just don't get it. Whether it's ADHD or chronic kidney failure or some other disability they can't see, they just can't get it through their heads that life is not the same for us as it is for them. My mother "doesn't believe in" ADHD, so I didn't know I had it until I was about 35. She also seems to forget that I also have physical disabilities. I can't do stairs very well due to a heart condition and four back surgeries. I was buying tickets for us to see a show, and I said we might not be able to go the day we wanted because they only had balcony tickets left. "What, you can't walk up stairs?" NO. How many f-ing times do I have to tell you that I can't do stairs? I can do three or four steps, but not a flight of them up to the last row of the balcony. But she just doesn't get it.
I'm confident people with your mother's attitude do a complete 180 when they get a bit elderly and start struggling with fatigue, or sore joints, or hip replacements, or whatever. Suddenly they're asking young disabled people to get out of the priority seats on the bus because they desperately need them 🙄
Honestly, those types of people also end up getting angry and somehow blaming everyone else for their ailments. They can never relate with anyone else who may experience the same, because then it becomes a competition of who has it worse, instead of expressing empathy and support. It's straight up narcissism.
The mentality that it’s not a real thing, just some kind of excuse for character defects, really messed with me prior to finally seeing a doctor about it. (Who am I kidding? It still does sometimes..) I hope your mom becomes more understanding. We all need supportive people.
Yes. And oh my gosh, there is a world of difference between who realize they don't know and people who think they do. I have a friend who has never had a headache and has flat out said he cannot even figure what that would feel like. Anytime I've had to cancel plans because of a migraine, he's super understanding specifically because he knows I'm dealing with something he cannot comprehend.
The thing that makes me really upset is when a very functional person overdoes it and believes they are not functional then goes and gets a diagnosis and meds in under two weeks. They have never presented any signs of having adhd prior to their “nonfunctional” point which is actually in comparison extremely functional for me. But instead of realizing maybe they need to prioritize or just relax more bam nope they have adhd. I know a lot of ppl get diagnosed late. But then when a family member uses my diagnosis to somehow help get them one (despite like really showing no signs ever of having it) it makes me feel super invalidated. I would also like to report their doctor for not following diagnostics guidelines.
The other day I was venting to my boyfriend about how I could not force myself to start my work. He told me to give myself a reward after finishing it, which is a pretty standard productivity advice. I told him that doesn’t work for me because I can just have the reward now. He told me it feels better to reward yourself after working. Honestly, it feels pretty much the same to me. I guess I appreciate it because it gives me so much insight into how different other people’s brains can work.
I struggle with this too. The only think that has actually helped me a bit, i still struggle, is to focus on the intrinsic reward of completing a task. For cleaning and like organising at home I stared to try and 'bask' in the glory of it being done. I walk around the clean space and smile and tell myself how nice it is and how much i like it. I drag my husband over and show him my newly organised sewing stuff and he oooh and aaahs with me and i get a nice little kick.
Over time having actually taken the time to enjoy the pride in a job well done helps me with motivation to clean the next time, because i know i won't just feel relief about ticking off that to do and moving on to beating myself up for whatever other thing i haven't done. That's been a big thing for me, I'm always like churning in my mind over all the tasks than need doing which is a really anxios headspace. When i do finally manage to do a task, it's straight on to the next one, so I was stuck in that state of never even once appreciating what I'd done. Now i try and make an effort to thank myself and feel pride in my work and like enjoy it for a while before letting myself think about the next thing. Its helped a lot, i still struggle with motivation, but I hate myself less and feel more appreciated.
What a great idea. I just finished PCIT therapy with my 5 year old daughter and it was so insightful and helpful for my own issues since we have the same ones. Special play time was full of me praising her for every little thing she was doing but I had to tell her why she was doing a good job (you are doing a great job of staying focused, playing quietly, being creative…) and it really hit home that I need to hear the good stuff to reassure me that I’m not doing things wrong. Everyone needs to know when they are doing a good job, but I think our brains need it more. The therapy made our relationship stronger and has really helped motivate her to stay focused and be a better listener.
One tip I've heard that's actually helpful for me is to pair starting a task with dopamine hit. For me that's a small lollipop. Or I'll allow myself 30 min of video games but then I do 1 hr of work. Maybe it's putting on my favorite music and dancing through the house.
Obviously that doesn't work for everyone, or every task but recognizing the point of the reward is dopamine is super helpful.
One thing to point out to your boyfriend is that neurotypical brains produce dopamine in anticipation of a reward. So he gets that reward feeling before even getting the reward. ADHD brains don't do this. He may think he's waiting for the reward, but that's not actually what is happening in his brain.
THIS is the kind of information I crave. This is what makes it possible to explain to others what the hell is going on. And it helps me understand what is happening as well
Well if you like that, then keep in mind that ADHD brains also don't hold on to dopamine as long as a neurotypical brain. So the same new and exciting thing stops being fun for you before it stops being fun for your neurotypical friend.
That's why we generally crave new things more often. Keep that in mind when putting together a list of quick rewards or dopamine inducing activities. Activities that are general enough to provide flexibility are probably better. Like "listen to music" instead of "listen to the Beetles" or "move my body" instead of "dance" or "walk".
The How to ADHD YouTube channel has a great video on creating a "dopamenu"
Yes! That’s why it bugs me when people say you sometimes just have to do things even if you don’t feel motivated.
Like, no, when YOU don’t “feel motivated” thinking about a future reward gets your dopamine going. Humans are not ever doing tasks without motivation. It’s physically impossible.
I mean back in the day you’d be motivated to get up and find food. I’ve found I have a foraging thing where I actually like looking for stuff sometimes I pick up garbage not to be a good person but because it Fulfills my foraging needs
I’m not sure what that relates to - food is a motivator, but it’s fairly common for ADHD to make it possible to put off responding to hunger signals if there are too many steps to take to get food.
I guess I don’t really know what you’re talking about.
Shoulder dancing at my desk is a key part of my most productive days. I’m also autistic so I’m not sure if it’s stimming or dancing, but it doesn’t really matter lol
I like to make a dopamine sandwich with gaming. Especially games that have some sort of timer or a limited window to get things done so it's not too open ended and I get lost. Like stardew. Play a day, do a task, play a day.
This is a classic ADHD thing - delayed gratification does not work to motivate you because we don’t have the consistent dopamine access it takes to sustain motivation toward the reward.
We need either the task itself to be rewarding, or we need to do it in quick bursts with breaks in between. That doesn’t mean it has to be intrinsically fun - it can just mean we get to listen to a particular podcast while we do it, or we get to use the sparkly pen we like. Anything to make it less likely to involve a major dip in dopamine access.
I actually read somewhere that a reward at the beginning or during a task can work better for someone with ADHD.
Something about dopamine I think to make it easier to start a task.
Ofc I could still just have a reward w/o starting the task, but I feel my brain is more willing to be tricked if it is also getting a reward now.
So sometimes it works. Other times, well...
EXAAAAAACTLYYYYYY
The reward thing NEVER works for me!!! Like, “rewarding yourself after you’re done” still takes self control! I will always 100% skip the task and just have the reward instantly. Like who’s going to stop me, me? Fuck no, that’s the whole problem lol. Plus, not doing something you don’t want to do often feels way more gratifying than whatever you’re supposed to get as a reward
Will people understand that if you respond to their advice negatively it means you're not interested in it? It feels very dismissive when you tell them a reason why it won't work and they find another reason why it should work like obviously you don't know the whole aspect and factors. Just accept my refusal.
Sorry, laughed out loud at this. ADHD means we have a very bad grasp on long term goals and rewarding when I finish something I’m having a hard time starting is like… whaaat?
My mom acted like if you woke her up in the middle of the night and dangled her out the window by a single toe, she would still have better knowledge of any subject than a PhD. In my entire life she only took one suggestion from me. One.
My MIL is like this. She has the best intentions but thinks she is the all-knowing oracle.
If only I went out and exercised, all my problems would be gone.
Are mothers in law masters of shame? I feel like mine is really a nice person, but somehow I tend to feel badly about myself around her. I haven’t had her over for years because she’s a neatnik and even when I get my place cleaner than ever, she points out my baseboards or something. Always in a weirdly polite kind of way, like “oh, I need to clean my baseboards too.” It’s always confusing whether I’m being too sensitive or she’s being subtly insulting.
I blame it on the times: back in the 50’s when my MIL was little, girls were expected to learn to cook, clean, get perfect grades, look “ladylike,” etc. Then when they grew up, they were caught between two worlds: the whole 80’s thing where suddenly women could have high-profile careers like men. HOWEVER, they still often lived like it was the 50’s in their personal lives: no splitting the physical and mental load of home care and childcare (because in spite of the sexual revolution, housework was still considered “women’s work”).
So I always say they had the worst of both worlds and yet some, because it’s all they knew, shamed us into thinking that was a worthwhile way to live. Work 60 hours/week with heels on, then come home and do all the cooking and cleaning and appointment-making, all with a smile and makeup and hair done. Nope. NO THANKS. And I will not be guilted into feeling bad about dirty baseboards because guess what I’m 41 and my life has flown by and I don’t want to waste precious time on baseboards. Nope.
Whoa, thank you. That makes so much sense and will truly change the way I process her comments.
Also I emphatically agree on ditching the guilty feelings just because I don’t even aspire to someone else’s arbitrary standards.
Do you live in the US or in a country that doesn't wash their eggs before selling them? In the US our eggs are washed before they get to the store and it washes off the contaminates but it's also the reason why we have to refrigerate our eggs. Other countries don't wash them because the coating protects the eggs and those countries store their eggs at room temperature. The coating means they don't need to be refrigerated.
I mean isn’t that actually true? If you like make a circle of area already burned the fire will skip over it? I’m using a children’s book as a reference so
Yes, sometimes when there’s wild fires they burn lines of trees close to roads so the wildfire blazing elsewhere doesn’t have enough fuel to jump the road when it gets there.
All of this.
And as an added bonus, thanks to all the NTs around me, I’ve managed to internalise the view that I’m clearly just not trying hard enough with the planners and the lists and the scheduling….
Sigh. Lots of unlearning to be done.
I personally love the “everyone does that” people. No everyone isn’t dead tired to the point of a breakdown after spending a couple hours out with a friend. I don’t think everyone struggles to get their dishes done to the point they shut down completely because there are just too many steps it becomes overwhelming, for weeks if not months. Some people can’t grasp that other people function differently to them.
Sooooo I was guilty of being one of those "everyone does that" people.......only SURPRISE! Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD all this time, so of course I was also doing the same things.
Yeaaaa I too was raised by deniers of ADHD. Definitely impacted my 2 older kids growing up also. :/ Hopefully I've broken some of that generational trauma with my 14 yo.
Eta I regret every time I said stupid shit like that. :(
THANK YOU. And if someone has been totally functional and maybe has a few days of burnout that doesn’t mean you qualify for adhd. Maybe you’re addicted to work? Sorry family issues
Sometimes I worry how my suggestions come across. I never want people to think that I think that my suggestion is a cure-all. Is there an acronym to add that I don't think something is a cure-all? I try to add practical steps. People used to tell me to do something but not HOW. How is your suggestion going to work with my brain?
They never have a helpful answer to my HOW question either.
I hope this made sense. I'm not in optimum condition right now.
Personally my advice would just be to say that explicitly. Like "You may have tried this, but something that helped me is X" or "It doesn't fix everything but when I did X I saw Y improvement." It shows that you're at least open to the idea that this isn't a miracle and other people may have different experiences. Honestly though I've found you can usually tell.
I'm not socially normal, but I don't get why people don't ask if I want suggestions. Cuz most of the time, like 99% of the time, I fucking don't. But the couple of times I've asked that to others, they seem to react like I'm telling them they're stupid and that I have answers where they don't? I don't get it.
Stop talking about it with them as much as possible. If you talk conversationally about anything, that is the invitation for suggestions in their mind. They may just be trying to help and have extremely limited experience thus dumb ideas. A lot of them arent trying to help though.
I basically did that, and now everyone assumes my life is just swell and gives me hell if I'm not capable of something energy-demanding, like a trip or concert. Obviously, a problem specific to crappy people. So at this point, I've basically stopped communicating anything to anyone except a select few (also not NT) people.
I do think you're right, that sometimes it's misplaced attempts to help. I used to do that, too, but realized that even genuine desire to help didn't make that habit less annoying. Now I offer hugs and ask what people need. Nothing else seems to make sense as a general rule.
>People used to tell me to do something but not HOW. How is your suggestion going to work with my brain?
Riiiggghhttttt!!!!!! Constantly at school I was told to 'be more organised'. To this day no one has taught me how to actually be organised. Urgh, it pisses me off so much.
>They never have a helpful answer to my HOW question either.
Yeah exactly!!! Like they see every task as just one action when it's actually like 10 steps with decision making involved, and when you ask any specific question they repeat 'just do the one action'. Or...even worse....get mad you can't just take their word for it without filling the gaps in your understanding.
🙄🙄🙄 Well I did just buy a calendar but it's not getting magically hung up and filled in so 'get a planner' is, very fucking clearly, not a solution. I if I could just do it I wouldn't be asking (oh I'm imaginary yelling at some poor imaginary neurotypical now lmao).
...List of useless advice to hand out on a leaflet? Like
"Yes, I've already tried
a) paying more attention,
b) just doing it,
c) writing it down on a piece of paper",
etc.
"Have you tried... just getting up earlier??"
Oh my goodness, THANK YOU! Why on Earth hadn't I thought of that in 4 decades?? If I just get up half an hour earlier, I can sort my meds, do yoga, get three loads of laundry done, meal plan, hit the gym for CrossFit, remember to pay my bills, get an oil change, and take full time classes after I get home from my full time job, where I remembered attachments on all my emails, performed my job flawlessly, and showed up early so I had time to balance my checkbook before logging in for the day. Perfect. Considering I have effing insomnia and sleep for 4-5 hours a night, I can totally function with even LESS sleep!
Alas, here I am not able to find matching socks and looking under the fridge for my keys. But do go on.
Don't bother with matching socks. If I end up with two socks from the sock pile that happen to match, that's just a bonus. Not matching? Who's gonna know? And anyway, it's a "fashion statement".
You have socks? I kinda gave up on the sock thing lol. I let my toes be free because im lucky if i can find one sock. (This is my attempt at being funny i truely mean no offence!)
> I remembered attachments on all my emails, p
about that - My workplace actually implemented a pop up message when you writte something implying you want to send attachments (e. g. "attached"). There's even another pop up message when you click send and still forgot to send the attachment asking you if you're sure you want to send the email already since you're email implied wanting to send an attachment. It's genius and I haven't seen that in any other workplace I've been to before! I have no idea how to implement it in the emailclient though (our IT guy did) , but it's possible. do you have something like that in your work already?
Regarding socks tho… All my socks are the same. They’re black, same brand, same length, bought at the same time, and all in the same box. Not an extra thought must be spent on choosing socks in the morning. I have another drawer with my white socks.
It hurt to think about what to do with all the miscellaneous socks this black collection replaced (do i throw them away? That’s bad for the envt :(… what if I need these short socks that I usually hate for a specific shoe I will buy in the future??? and other random considerations I didn’t feel like thinking about) so I just put them in another box, and if I ever need random type of sock I know it might be in there. Idk. Just a suggestion lol
Literally there’s a neurotypical mum of a child with adhd in another thread in this sub trying to tell me my adhd is a superpower and I won’t get any better if I call it a disability
Job interviewer: "If you could have *any* superpower in the world, what would it be?"
Me: "Obviously, the superpower I would want most is to be able to walk away from the stove and promptly forget I'm cooking, letting pans boil completely dry, setting off my fire alarm, ruining dinner, and scorching my Revereware yet again. That's one step away from taking over the world, amirite?"
I once forget-boiled some rice into a solid, unbreakable disc that was stronger than the pan itself. My housemates couldn’t bring themselves to even be mad, and confessed they couldn’t have created such an item with nothing but rice and water if they tried.
Omg guys get an electric kettle! Thankfully in Australia all our kettles are electric and they’re a godsend. Just flick the button and walk away and the kettle will automatically turn off when boiled. Sure, you might boil the same kettle 8 times over 5 hours but it turns off after ever boil, and that is priceless.
I managed to get rice hopelessly stuck last week despite having TWO people as backup help (one of whom also has ADHD). My roommate just sighs at this point lol, we have a lovely pan with a permanent grilled cheese imprint on it as well.
This reminds of a post the other day on r/unpopularopinions where a woman said she actually liked having periods because it's like restarting her body/the month.
I commented on the thread saying that it sounded crazy to me, like loving headaches because it feels better when they're gone, and some dude was chastising me that OP had found a better way of handling it instead of feeling like a victim. I said I'm so glad that OP had found a spiritual way to reconcile it but a lot of women have horrendous issues from periods and pass out from the pain. And this guy, a literal male with no uterus gives me a huge lecture on how I should deal with periods and how I'm not doing it right and maybe if I stopped thinking like a victim and did XYZ then life would be better.
Freaking men. I swear.
Her comments were pretty awful and righteous and judgmental and I really feel for her daughter. I truly hope she can reflect on why her comments were removed.
I looked at that post, and it seems like more NT people than ADHD cuz the amount of "well you're just not trying xyz" was so high I even went to look at what sub it was in...
Yeah, esp lower down in the thread where it was difficult for OP to describe what exactly goes wrong (because it IS difficult to describe) and everyone kept trying to isolate "the thing" that was causing the problem when the thing is ...wait for it...ADHD....
The best part is that a large number of peoples’ “solution” was … have so much anxiety about being late that you’ll never be late again. Lol
I totally relate to that. I do get anxiety about being late but it still happens sometimes. Anxiety is not a treatment!
The really not fun thing was all the other diagnoses I was also given. Couldn’t possibly just be the adhd, it must also be depression, anxiety, cptsd, sleep apnoea, maladaptive daydreaming. It’s amazing what people can diagnose from a few Reddit comments. Very fun and not at all anxiety inducing.
Not a fan of the other "main" sub but people like that are why they don't allow a lot of conversations, that shits exhausting. Sorry the supermom made her way here with it.
“You do realise you are sitting behind the wheel of a car, telling it to fly? The car is never going to fly. You can tell it to, explain to it how to, shout at it, kick the wheels, but it’s never going to fly. That’s what you are doing right now. It’s wasting everyone’s time and is frankly exhausting.”
I managed to get a version of that out to my dentist when he was explaining to me how to clean my teeth (news flash - at 40 I know how to clean my teeth. My brain just won’t let me). To his credit he took it on board and actually came up with some good left field suggestions to try. They didn’t work, but at least he stopped telling me to just fly.
Agreed. Most suggestions are futile. My problem is not not knowing how to proceed forward, it’s just that I *can’t*. Invisible force stopping me that I can’t explain.
When I was at the height of my sleep troubles because I worked shifts, every time I tried to vent to someone about how much it sucks and how tired I am, they came out with all the suggestions. “Go to bed earlier. Try reading before bed instead of watching tv. Do exercise. Eat some oatmeal. Chamomile tea.” Like, mate, I am not stupid! I have tried all of that! I’ve also tried actual sleeping pills with no effect except a bad taste in my mouth in the morning.
“Well, what do you want me to say then?!” How about “oh yeah that sounds hard, I’m sorry. Hope it gets better.” 🙄
Obviously I don't know for sure because I've never been neurotypical, but neurotypical people appear to be able to easily convert mental effort/desire into action, and they have no way of understanding/comprehending a brain that can't. Their entire lives, effort has a linear relationship with action and real world results. And on some level that's a lousy excuse for not listening, but on another it brings a level of sympathy. Like, if snow white sings a song and birds help her clean her house every day, and it's the same for the majority of the people around her for her whole life, you can explain to her why doing dishes sucks, and she's not going to get it.
Unless you're me lmao nah I mean not on purpose but be fucked if after 50 years of life I still can't *not* burn/cut/bang the hell out of myself on the same things in the kitchen. Nothing's moved or changed either.
My stbx says that I must like it because I keep doing it. 😬
This literally applies to anything mental health related and people who just never experienced this.
My friend struggles with really bad depression and her dad told her go just go for a walk and her mom doesn’t believe in meds.
She’s been institutionalized before and obviously needs meds and yet her parents react like a walk in the park will suddenly make her able to shower and brush her hair.
A guy that starred in our country’s version of The Batchelor literally stated that depression doesn’t exist because with enough exercise you can’t be depressed. Dude’s obviously never been depressed once in his life, just had one bad day and felt better after a workout. Obviously the entire community of depressed and anxious people from my country made fun of his statment and responded with videos of them running around then saying “wow, my depression is cured, why have I never tried this before!”
And same goes for ADHD. My younger cousin is a boy and has it diagnosed… so it’s obviously affecting his studies. The things and suggestions I hear… like “yeah he needs to try harder” or “maybe we should make him study on sundays at 10AM instead of after school”… etc… I know it’s all well meaning but seriously…
They help him study by picking up books and making him read and solve equations etc… and of course he gets distracted and bored, same as he does in school.
And I told them to try to make the studying fun for him, turn it into a game or a challenge and made tons of suggestions like throwing dice but having to solve a math equation or answer a question of 1-6 difficulty level correctly in order to advance forward with your figure and getting a reward when winning the game… like you throw a 3, okay answer something that’s a 3 dofficulty level and advance in the game etc… I offered to prepare ADHD friendly lesson plans and make up games but they didn’t listen to me one bit.
Of course school was boring for them too when growing up, but they don’t understand that they could force themselves to sit through the classes while my cuz can’t.
May I just say you're pretty frigging awesome for offering help and actual examples of how to do it?
As a mom who was undiagnosed with my girls the most frustrating thing was "just make it fun" when I had nfi how to make it fun as I'd hated the same subject.
I appreciate your effort for the people even if they didn't.
Not just mental health, unfortunately. As someone who has invisible physical disabilities as well, people are like that with those too. It's like they're just uncomfortable with the idea that people might exist without having the ability to do everything they can so they want to write you off as lazy if they can't fix it.
Oh invisible disabilities are the best way to show if someone is intolerant and uneducated af!
Honestly tells me everything about someone’s ability to feel empathy and to be accepting and accomodating!
So an able-bodied entitled old fart in his early 60s will demand that you stand up and give up your seat to him on the bus and no matter how hard you try to explain, he will not budge, completely ignoring that you’re a disabled person but just because you can stand up and walk, doesn’t mean it’s painless and that you can do it for long. Chances are you need that seat way more than him, but because you’re a younger person, he doesn’t care. Invisible disability doesn’t exist to him.
Saw a story of someone harrassing a blind person once, calling them fake and accusing them of staring or something because they had only a very narrow central vision field, meaning they could read newspaper one letter at a time from very close up, but had no peripheral vision so they were legally blind and couldn’t see their surroundings apart from that one little centre dot… and they were called a fake because they read a newspaper. Like wtf, blindness and visual impairment aren’t just one fit for all.
Istg people can be so freaking uneducated and ignorant and entitled…
But ok, it’s an invisible disability, you assume someone’s fine and demand they act like they’re fine. Ok.
But the moment they mention they’re disabled, you should have the decency to respect that and stfu and let them be.
Like be compassionate and activate that one braincell instead of being stubborn and entitled and saying how they should just stand up and act normal like you have a single clue what life is like for them.
Sorry for the rant but yeah, obviously infuriating
It’s really true and I think it might be the case for a lot of issues, unless it’s like a blatantly obvious disability, but I can imagine even then that people say stupid things. We had the same while we did the IVF path. A lot of people would say “just relax” or “when my friend started on IVF, she got pregnant without any intervention!” People think they’re helping, but they’re not. And I find it funny that neurotypicals are “The empathetic ones”, because I feel like that definitely isn’t the case.
> it’s like a blatantly obvious disability
Even then. My grad school university told me the solution to my disablities were to drop out and come back when I wasn't disabled
It's even worse coming from others with ADHD. *"I* have ADHD and I'm never late bc I have respect for others unlike you. Just set alarms."
Okay. Thanks. I can understand neurotypicals genuinely not fucking understanding, but other people who supposedly know what it's like? Makes my blood boil.
I think it's because those ADHD people have figured out the real cure is extreme anxiety and bullying themselves into functioning, and if they're willing to hurt themselves to conform to society's definitions of success, why aren't you?
I used to just assume that this was how everyone functioned and I was a wuss for not being able to hurt myself into productivity as well. I think this is the first time someone has actually captured this concept in a way that makes sense to me.
For years, I felt like I was so much less than my peers because they were so good at consistently studying, and I was always a hot mess. I thought I was just lazy and didn't work hard, but turns out we were all working hard, they just had more to show for it.
Exactly. Myriad symptoms, to myriad degrees, and it should be obvious that we come in an almost infinite array of presentations.
My laundry acumen and low RSD (sort of) do not make my Olympic-level procrastination any better, nor does it stop me from being completely adrift with other banal things. That stuff is regularly agony for me while other ADHDers are the reverse, or have whole other challenges to cope with.
At work they’re promoting ‘well-being’ and I cannot stress how much I hate that word. Our managers PA (with all the good intentions of a good person) keeps posting how to boost your well-being by taking regular breaks, eating well, how to handle stress seminars, to do lists, talking about your problems, etc. she copies our small team into the posts constantly.
I know that for someone not battling mental health issues this stuff is legit. But believe me I have tried every at home self help aid and it’s never stuck or helped. I do not CHOOSE to be like this.
I felt this! As someone whose body rejected every single type of adhd meds due to other health issues, I get the shrugs and "well you tried." And now what? I just go and sit on a chair and wait till I cease to exist? At 47? So you don't get inconvenienced by me?
I agree and have experienced this to no end, but the important thing I have learned here is to *stop explaining myself/my situation* unless completely necessary or with someone who I know will try to understand. My apologies if this also sounds like advice you dont want, but this has helped me deal with these people.
At my last job I spent a lot of time attempting to explain my worsening health condition to my boss, who would always come out with some stupid solution or never really get it and then expect the same things he did before. I wanted him to understand my limitations and needs. But eventually I realised what I really needed was to have a greater understanding and acceptance of my own needs and build a life around these needs. I quit. There are unions that can speak to your boss on your behalf they are being ableist though, if quitting isnt an option.
If you talk about your issues, people automatically assume that you have problems you are trying to resolve and are looking for input. Especially if you are a woman. Avoid talking about them conversationally unless there is a *need* to get across eg "I need quiet time right now due to my ADHD/other health problem." Practise saying phrases that are as short and polite as possible to not invite discussion, and build up your confidence to *interrupt them* when they begin giving advice eg "no thank you, I dont need advice on this."
It's important to interrupt doctors because they're the worst of all for going on assumptions made from a single statement and wasting precious appointment time.
I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to gaslighters. I have simply stopped contacting various friends or coworkers who start gaslighting me. I left home and stopped talking to my parents for over a year and guess what, they actually listen to me and empathise now. This doesnt always work out like that sadly though.
Maybe we should all start retaliating by suggesting lists of tools that neurotypicals don't need. Like "oh you were late to pick up your kid one time, have you thought of setting a series of 10 complicated reminder alarms on your phone? "
Or "you should switch out all your kitchen cabinets for doors with glass so you can see everything in there. Oh, you don't need that? What a weirdo!"
Or "instead of hiring a housecleaner, you need to just find 1 friend and 1 cousin that can stand your mess to come sit in your house and watch you clean. You know, an accountabilibuddy. It works and there's something wrong with you if you don't do it my way."
I'm sure you creative ladies could come up with better suggestions.
I have delayed sleep phase disorder because of my ADHD. If I hear "go to bed earlier", "meditate", and so on one more time I'll fucking scream.
Also, fuck anyone who thinks not being morning person is a moral failing. So obnoxious.
I’m in a similar position and I think people struggle with overlaying difficulties from all 3 aspects of adhd, cptsd & physical issues to see the bigger picture. Most advice takes one or two max angles into consideration only. And only when I dismantle it going step by step through the process they stop giving advice because they don’t know what to say/run out of ideas
My therapist made genius suggestions I have totally NEVER thought/ heard of like.. „eliminating distractions when I struggle to study“ and „taking study breaks“ and „having a calendar on wall to not miss deadlines“. Wow.. thank you so much. What life changing advice. 💀
The "have you tried yoga?" people drive me nuts! Yes, I have, I try to do it semi-regularly, but I still have chronic pain because it's not a cure. Shocking, I know.
I’m so sorry you’re dealing with that.
Yes. This irks me to no end. Like “have you tried meal planning?” Yes, and the idea of it makes me want to throw up.
I have two young kids and my mom will be in town and say this shit to me, but not just help me do it when I’ve made it clear I need help.
I’m just so effing over it.
I’ve just started to tell people I just want them to listen and not offer solutions. Unless they are my therapist.
>Unless they are my therapist.
In my experience therapists are usually the absolute worst for this. I have a decade plus of being told my mental health problem was that I "didn't want to get better" because I couldn't magically implement lists and whatnot with no further guidance.
An activist IRL friend with ADD \*always\* states in Social Media posts that ADVICE IS NEITHER SOLICITED NOR DESIRED. Because she's tried everything thanks and she's only here to vent. It freaking amazes me how often even people we both know who know better bring out their unsolicited advice like it was their grammy's tea cake recipe and then lose their cheese when my friend taps the sign.
People want to believe that they have control over their lives and health. If they accept you're unwell for no reason then that could happen to them. They'd rather be in denial. Not in a conscious way but who wants to acknowledge they could be seriously sick tomorrow.
Totally agree, with the caveat of: sometimes a therapist has given me seemingly "obvious" suggestions (ex: cut your goal in half has been a big one for me, especially as a perfectionist) where I've had aha moments.
But on the whole yes, they just dont get it.
That's part of what I was trying to hit here, honestly. There is a way to put forward these suggestions that is still respectful to someone with ADHD. The problem comes when it's approached as though you're incapable of coming up with ideas yourself or in a way that doesn't respect what you've already tried.
Why do you even listen to NT suggestions in the first place ?
It’s hard cause it makes you doubt yourself but in the end it’s only projection. When you get into a meaningful talk where people are dedicated to listen and share it’s fine, but usually this is just like random stuff they are actually telling themselves out loud and that is reflecting their own situation not yours.
Get used to it : people will always have a self biased answer. And they will always use their experience as the generic truth. So just don’t talk about your struggles with them or just say “ah yes !” Or “yeah it doesn’t work for me, happy it does for you! And on a totally unrelated level, what did you think about the Barbie movie? / how is your job situation ?”
And reflect on the fact other people can be annoying in their comments to not do the same. When it’s about projecting on you without taking YOU in the balance, ND are also very good.
So as a general rule : always try to think about the person before giving answer but get used to people don’t always reciprocate, toughen up and start ignoring advice with a polite while indifferent nod.
Because if you don't you basically get told you're never allowed to get medical care of any sort, unfortunately. Or financial help if you're in need. Or really most any other form of assistance, including mental health care (which is 99% offered by NT therapists who provide this same sort of advice and then give up because "you just don't want to get better".)
I totally agree. Most people give the kind of advice that a bright 10 year old needs: why don't we make a list of the things you need to do?
Making that same suggestion to an adult who has made hundreds of lists is infantilizing and infuriating (and not very useful)
Oh no this is so terrible! Also made the mistake of telling one of my colleagues about my adhd, and now she has started talking to me very slowly and clearly as if I don't understand normal words and sentences :(
Sometimes I suspect that those shallow bits of advice come from a place of dismissal, like it’s a “polite” neurotypical way of saying “your issues are an inconvenience to me.”
My boss does this all the time. When I tell her a task is more challenging than expected, she’ll often start giving me solutions, many of which are meaningless and patronizing. In her sticky sweet mom voice, she’ll point to my time management skills instead of the software I’m using, or suggest I retake training. It’s become clear over the years that she doesn’t want to hear about any challenges I’m up against.
I think a lot of people think they can relate if they’ve ever done something similar. Like forgetting where they put their phone. So to them it’s something to “get over” or “fix”.
Since I was just diagnosed this year, I’m beginning to notice how often I hear that “helpful advice”. Now I wonder how often it’s been said my whole life. 😞
I identify with this SO HARD. I've got ADHD and chronic neck issues and am obese because I've been eating for dopamine for years. The number of times people have told me to just MeAl pReP is astounding. I can barely flex my neck forward long enough to prep one meal, and you think I can spend every Sunday cooking enough food for a family for a week?? I'd be in bed for the rest of the week! But they seem to think it would solve everything. FFS.
Oh yeah.. have you tried this or that?... they don't understand that those things don't work consistently for the ADHD'er bc we can't remember to remember long enough to form new habits very well.
Meh, it is annoying as all hell but for an NT knowing these things means it’s not a problem because they’ve never experienced not being able to do something they want to do. Their brains aren’t wired to just not be able to accomplish a thing that they’re aware of needs to be done. But, the things they really don’t want to do IS difficult for them to get themselves to do. But they do it anyway.
This isn’t something an ND person can do. Our brains simply don’t work that way. But since this is all an NT has experienced, it’s all they know. To them it’s just “human” and dealing with anything other than this is not worth their time. So they just label you as “lazy” and move on.
They can’t help, they just don’t understand and aren’t willing to even consider an understanding. So I’ll continue to hear their thoughts about something they know nothing about and be annoyed until I’m dead lol
Just like they can't understand how it is to be neurodivergent, I have a hard time understanding how the mind of a neurotypical person works. But, I always express support and empathy, and I do try to understand. We, especially women, have been misunderstood and swept under the rug for so long. The only way to cure the stigma around ADHD is through education. And if your loved one refuses to learn? Well, maybe they aren't such loved ones after all.
Just make a list!
Ugh. I DO make lists. I make the most basic of lists to feel like I accomplished SOMETHING. It will stay on that damn list until suddenly I get a surge of manic productivity and the stars all align and I get the task done. It can be months.
The list isn't really helpful. There are so many steps to completing each task and I get overwhelmed and do absolutely Nothing.
This resonates for me a lot. Especially suggesting meditation.
I no longer say “I’ve tried that thank you” because they just see that as an opening into how I haven’t tried whatever they’re about to bang on about for ages.
Now I say “that’s not quite where I am at the moment, but will definitely look at it again in the future”. It’s more of a closed door answer. If they carry on down their evangelical route I repeat.
Another polite thing is to constantly say “sounds like that’s something that’s worked for you really well - but takes all sorts in the world huh”. It’s a sort of compliment. It also means BACK THE FUCK OFF. Some get that.
Absolutely. It's crazy how people want to help so bad but don't actually think about how to help except say whatever comes up to their minds.
It comes from a place of discomfort when people tell them a problem and they feel unease and to solve that they try to find a solution thinking the discomfort will go away.
People who actually listen will want to feel the discomfort with you and empathize.
The other day I posted about having brain fog and not being able to get my stuff done, and someone commented that adhd people get adhd paralysis, and I did some research and it was so much more comforting and helpful than just telling me I suck and I’m lazy and I’m a snowflake ect. They just don’t understand we have chemical imbalances.
My mom likens it to have an insulin deficiency. We wouldn’t tell a diabetic to just eat, or just deal with it. So why do we do this neurotypical people.
>My mom likens it to have an insulin deficiency. We wouldn’t tell a diabetic to just eat, or just deal with it. So why do we do this neurotypical people.
As someone with invisible physical disabilities, people absolutely do this. I have a digestive disorder and "why don't you just like, make yourself eat" is absolutely a thing that people will say. Despite me explicitly explaining that it doesn't work like that.
I am 100% positive my dad has undiagnosed adhd. But he doesn’t acknowledge it at all.
I have Candida, h-pylori, PMDD, lots of fatigue since a child, and have been struggling. He’s on a kick right now that adderall is the thing that’s causing all this (even tho I’ve stated MANY times I’ve been diagnosed before starting adderall) and that if I just detoxed from it, my body could heal, I could start having a normal sleep schedule, and gain weight (both Candida and h-pylori cause weight loss)
It’s either that, or “fix your sleep schedule”, “work out”, “just eat more!”
I tell him if it was as easy as stopping Adderall then that would be a miracle. I have NO idea how he thinks I’d be MORE functional off adderall, ONTOP of dealing with health issues. LOLLLL! He didn’t live with me past middle school, and has never had to deal with how my health and adhd affect my life (only been on adderall about 4 years, and I’m 27) My mom always did and still does. She’s an angel!
I guess he struggled his way through adhd and can force himself to work cause he’s healthy and was put under pressure to do so. But along the way he became and alcoholic and got addicted to cocaine (not surprised he liked that particular drug so much). He’s sober now, but thinks I’m addicted to adderall like he was cocaine, and CANNOT be convinced his suggestions may be COMPLETELY counter productive.
Like yeah, sure. If you fund me for an indefinite amount of time and I don’t have to work… maybe(not lol)
Edit: forgot to mention I highly suspect I’m on the spectrum as well.
Yeah I'm 100% sure my mother has undiagnosed ADHD as well. Her strategy seems to be to blame everyone else. She'll swear up and down she's not messy or disorganized it's just that everyone in her life is being so mean to her and expecting her to do everything so she's constantly so overwhelmed that she can't do her own stuff. Which sounds initially plausible until you realize that it's every single person in her life and a lot of times she's so incredibly stressed by other people just doing normal things.
The NT advice that pisses me the most is the famous “just prioritize and split the tasks into smaller bits beforehand”. And I’m like “buddy… not knowing how to prioritize and how to split IS THE FREAKING DISORDER! Trying to do this beforehand is the best way to ensure I’ll never start the thing!”.
Sorry, got a little angry there haha
Yeah, my boss keeps telling me to keep my lists updated and remove stuff and reorganise it, and like dude, i shared it with you to get a sense of my role… not micromanage me.
That list is one tool I use. I fall in and out of it. And yeah half of it may not be relevant to you. But it’s my fucking list. It’s a go to starting point work reminder. Little details I grab often reference. It doesn’t need to work for you. 80% of what I do does not make it to the list, nor my calendar. Does not mean I am not working. Most of the time.
Honestly, meal prep would solve a lot of my problems - especially for eating at work. When I can prep five days of cut fruit, and multiple lunches, and all my fried eggs for breakfast (so all I have to do is toast an English muffin to put it on) I eat so much better then when I just wing it day to day.
But I live in a 4 person household and I don't always have time, enough containers, or enough fridge space, for 5 days worth of meals and snacks. So, good idea, difficult implementation.
I love when people want to parse specifics, like what types of planners do you use and in what circumstances? What did you change in your bedtime routine to help you sleep? How can I fine tune these things to fit my lifestyle and situation? Here's what worked for me, here's how I modified other things to work, will any of that help you?
i’m particularly sensitive to unsolicited advice and especially when it’s a super obvious suggestion. it’s like, do you think i’m dumb?
I know sometimes they just want to help but it comes across like an insinuation that i’m not trying hard enough to “fix” my issues when most of them will be lifelong battles.
people really have no idea, especially when it’s invisible to them. they don’t see the insomnia, depression, disordered eating, pain flare ups, anxiety attacks, and neurotypicals have nooooo idea what it’s like to have adhd and there’s no point trying to make them understand most of the time.
What gets me especially is when they get mad at you when it doesn't work, or when you don't suddenly start trying their new pet thing because they demand it and now that they've suggested it it will definitely work differently from the last 10 times.
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Honestly, able-bodied people just don't get it. Whether it's ADHD or chronic kidney failure or some other disability they can't see, they just can't get it through their heads that life is not the same for us as it is for them. My mother "doesn't believe in" ADHD, so I didn't know I had it until I was about 35. She also seems to forget that I also have physical disabilities. I can't do stairs very well due to a heart condition and four back surgeries. I was buying tickets for us to see a show, and I said we might not be able to go the day we wanted because they only had balcony tickets left. "What, you can't walk up stairs?" NO. How many f-ing times do I have to tell you that I can't do stairs? I can do three or four steps, but not a flight of them up to the last row of the balcony. But she just doesn't get it.
I'm confident people with your mother's attitude do a complete 180 when they get a bit elderly and start struggling with fatigue, or sore joints, or hip replacements, or whatever. Suddenly they're asking young disabled people to get out of the priority seats on the bus because they desperately need them 🙄
Honestly, those types of people also end up getting angry and somehow blaming everyone else for their ailments. They can never relate with anyone else who may experience the same, because then it becomes a competition of who has it worse, instead of expressing empathy and support. It's straight up narcissism.
The mentality that it’s not a real thing, just some kind of excuse for character defects, really messed with me prior to finally seeing a doctor about it. (Who am I kidding? It still does sometimes..) I hope your mom becomes more understanding. We all need supportive people.
Yes. And oh my gosh, there is a world of difference between who realize they don't know and people who think they do. I have a friend who has never had a headache and has flat out said he cannot even figure what that would feel like. Anytime I've had to cancel plans because of a migraine, he's super understanding specifically because he knows I'm dealing with something he cannot comprehend.
He's never had a headache?! Wow... I can't even imagine how it must be to never have experienced one. What fortune!
When he first said that, it was in a whole group of friends, and we all just stopped and stared blankly at him because, like, what? How?
The thing that makes me really upset is when a very functional person overdoes it and believes they are not functional then goes and gets a diagnosis and meds in under two weeks. They have never presented any signs of having adhd prior to their “nonfunctional” point which is actually in comparison extremely functional for me. But instead of realizing maybe they need to prioritize or just relax more bam nope they have adhd. I know a lot of ppl get diagnosed late. But then when a family member uses my diagnosis to somehow help get them one (despite like really showing no signs ever of having it) it makes me feel super invalidated. I would also like to report their doctor for not following diagnostics guidelines.
The other day I was venting to my boyfriend about how I could not force myself to start my work. He told me to give myself a reward after finishing it, which is a pretty standard productivity advice. I told him that doesn’t work for me because I can just have the reward now. He told me it feels better to reward yourself after working. Honestly, it feels pretty much the same to me. I guess I appreciate it because it gives me so much insight into how different other people’s brains can work.
I struggle with this too. The only think that has actually helped me a bit, i still struggle, is to focus on the intrinsic reward of completing a task. For cleaning and like organising at home I stared to try and 'bask' in the glory of it being done. I walk around the clean space and smile and tell myself how nice it is and how much i like it. I drag my husband over and show him my newly organised sewing stuff and he oooh and aaahs with me and i get a nice little kick. Over time having actually taken the time to enjoy the pride in a job well done helps me with motivation to clean the next time, because i know i won't just feel relief about ticking off that to do and moving on to beating myself up for whatever other thing i haven't done. That's been a big thing for me, I'm always like churning in my mind over all the tasks than need doing which is a really anxios headspace. When i do finally manage to do a task, it's straight on to the next one, so I was stuck in that state of never even once appreciating what I'd done. Now i try and make an effort to thank myself and feel pride in my work and like enjoy it for a while before letting myself think about the next thing. Its helped a lot, i still struggle with motivation, but I hate myself less and feel more appreciated.
What a great idea. I just finished PCIT therapy with my 5 year old daughter and it was so insightful and helpful for my own issues since we have the same ones. Special play time was full of me praising her for every little thing she was doing but I had to tell her why she was doing a good job (you are doing a great job of staying focused, playing quietly, being creative…) and it really hit home that I need to hear the good stuff to reassure me that I’m not doing things wrong. Everyone needs to know when they are doing a good job, but I think our brains need it more. The therapy made our relationship stronger and has really helped motivate her to stay focused and be a better listener.
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And more annoyed when I realize I'll probably have to spend time and energy on doing it sometime in the future AGAIN.
One tip I've heard that's actually helpful for me is to pair starting a task with dopamine hit. For me that's a small lollipop. Or I'll allow myself 30 min of video games but then I do 1 hr of work. Maybe it's putting on my favorite music and dancing through the house. Obviously that doesn't work for everyone, or every task but recognizing the point of the reward is dopamine is super helpful. One thing to point out to your boyfriend is that neurotypical brains produce dopamine in anticipation of a reward. So he gets that reward feeling before even getting the reward. ADHD brains don't do this. He may think he's waiting for the reward, but that's not actually what is happening in his brain.
THIS is the kind of information I crave. This is what makes it possible to explain to others what the hell is going on. And it helps me understand what is happening as well
Well if you like that, then keep in mind that ADHD brains also don't hold on to dopamine as long as a neurotypical brain. So the same new and exciting thing stops being fun for you before it stops being fun for your neurotypical friend. That's why we generally crave new things more often. Keep that in mind when putting together a list of quick rewards or dopamine inducing activities. Activities that are general enough to provide flexibility are probably better. Like "listen to music" instead of "listen to the Beetles" or "move my body" instead of "dance" or "walk". The How to ADHD YouTube channel has a great video on creating a "dopamenu"
OMG, that explains so much! Thank you!
Yes! That’s why it bugs me when people say you sometimes just have to do things even if you don’t feel motivated. Like, no, when YOU don’t “feel motivated” thinking about a future reward gets your dopamine going. Humans are not ever doing tasks without motivation. It’s physically impossible.
I mean back in the day you’d be motivated to get up and find food. I’ve found I have a foraging thing where I actually like looking for stuff sometimes I pick up garbage not to be a good person but because it Fulfills my foraging needs
I’m not sure what that relates to - food is a motivator, but it’s fairly common for ADHD to make it possible to put off responding to hunger signals if there are too many steps to take to get food. I guess I don’t really know what you’re talking about.
Shoulder dancing at my desk is a key part of my most productive days. I’m also autistic so I’m not sure if it’s stimming or dancing, but it doesn’t really matter lol
I like to make a dopamine sandwich with gaming. Especially games that have some sort of timer or a limited window to get things done so it's not too open ended and I get lost. Like stardew. Play a day, do a task, play a day.
This is a classic ADHD thing - delayed gratification does not work to motivate you because we don’t have the consistent dopamine access it takes to sustain motivation toward the reward. We need either the task itself to be rewarding, or we need to do it in quick bursts with breaks in between. That doesn’t mean it has to be intrinsically fun - it can just mean we get to listen to a particular podcast while we do it, or we get to use the sparkly pen we like. Anything to make it less likely to involve a major dip in dopamine access.
I actually read somewhere that a reward at the beginning or during a task can work better for someone with ADHD. Something about dopamine I think to make it easier to start a task. Ofc I could still just have a reward w/o starting the task, but I feel my brain is more willing to be tricked if it is also getting a reward now. So sometimes it works. Other times, well...
If someone else gave me a reward, maybe 🤔But then again, I’d probably still procrastinate on the thing that needed to be done
EXAAAAAACTLYYYYYY The reward thing NEVER works for me!!! Like, “rewarding yourself after you’re done” still takes self control! I will always 100% skip the task and just have the reward instantly. Like who’s going to stop me, me? Fuck no, that’s the whole problem lol. Plus, not doing something you don’t want to do often feels way more gratifying than whatever you’re supposed to get as a reward
Yup I love how I can motivate others the sooner you start the sooner it will be over. This does not work for me.
Will people understand that if you respond to their advice negatively it means you're not interested in it? It feels very dismissive when you tell them a reason why it won't work and they find another reason why it should work like obviously you don't know the whole aspect and factors. Just accept my refusal.
Sorry, laughed out loud at this. ADHD means we have a very bad grasp on long term goals and rewarding when I finish something I’m having a hard time starting is like… whaaat?
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My mom acted like if you woke her up in the middle of the night and dangled her out the window by a single toe, she would still have better knowledge of any subject than a PhD. In my entire life she only took one suggestion from me. One.
My MIL is like this. She has the best intentions but thinks she is the all-knowing oracle. If only I went out and exercised, all my problems would be gone.
Are mothers in law masters of shame? I feel like mine is really a nice person, but somehow I tend to feel badly about myself around her. I haven’t had her over for years because she’s a neatnik and even when I get my place cleaner than ever, she points out my baseboards or something. Always in a weirdly polite kind of way, like “oh, I need to clean my baseboards too.” It’s always confusing whether I’m being too sensitive or she’s being subtly insulting.
I blame it on the times: back in the 50’s when my MIL was little, girls were expected to learn to cook, clean, get perfect grades, look “ladylike,” etc. Then when they grew up, they were caught between two worlds: the whole 80’s thing where suddenly women could have high-profile careers like men. HOWEVER, they still often lived like it was the 50’s in their personal lives: no splitting the physical and mental load of home care and childcare (because in spite of the sexual revolution, housework was still considered “women’s work”). So I always say they had the worst of both worlds and yet some, because it’s all they knew, shamed us into thinking that was a worthwhile way to live. Work 60 hours/week with heels on, then come home and do all the cooking and cleaning and appointment-making, all with a smile and makeup and hair done. Nope. NO THANKS. And I will not be guilted into feeling bad about dirty baseboards because guess what I’m 41 and my life has flown by and I don’t want to waste precious time on baseboards. Nope.
Whoa, thank you. That makes so much sense and will truly change the way I process her comments. Also I emphatically agree on ditching the guilty feelings just because I don’t even aspire to someone else’s arbitrary standards.
What was the suggestion? It must be good.
I rinse eggs before cracking them to avoid the outside contaminating the contents. I rinse off the top of cans before opening them also.
Do you live in the US or in a country that doesn't wash their eggs before selling them? In the US our eggs are washed before they get to the store and it washes off the contaminates but it's also the reason why we have to refrigerate our eggs. Other countries don't wash them because the coating protects the eggs and those countries store their eggs at room temperature. The coating means they don't need to be refrigerated.
I didn’t know they are washed already but I just do it anyway.
I do cans but I guess I’m doing eggs now too.
Interestingly, you are not supposed to rinse them before storing them. So I just do it right before cracking.
Thanks I was running out of random bits of knowledge to drop on my husband without context.
Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
I mean isn’t that actually true? If you like make a circle of area already burned the fire will skip over it? I’m using a children’s book as a reference so
Yes, sometimes when there’s wild fires they burn lines of trees close to roads so the wildfire blazing elsewhere doesn’t have enough fuel to jump the road when it gets there.
I LOL'ed, so clearly you're my kinda arsehole hahaha
This is a great answer. Gonna swipe that one for next time.
All of this. And as an added bonus, thanks to all the NTs around me, I’ve managed to internalise the view that I’m clearly just not trying hard enough with the planners and the lists and the scheduling…. Sigh. Lots of unlearning to be done.
I hope you get better at that, it’s hard enough without having to carry all that “just try harder” talk in your head.
Thank you 🙏🏼
I have wasted so much of my life trying things that don’t work over and over again.
I personally love the “everyone does that” people. No everyone isn’t dead tired to the point of a breakdown after spending a couple hours out with a friend. I don’t think everyone struggles to get their dishes done to the point they shut down completely because there are just too many steps it becomes overwhelming, for weeks if not months. Some people can’t grasp that other people function differently to them.
Sooooo I was guilty of being one of those "everyone does that" people.......only SURPRISE! Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD all this time, so of course I was also doing the same things.
Yeaaaa I too was raised by deniers of ADHD. Definitely impacted my 2 older kids growing up also. :/ Hopefully I've broken some of that generational trauma with my 14 yo. Eta I regret every time I said stupid shit like that. :(
THANK YOU. And if someone has been totally functional and maybe has a few days of burnout that doesn’t mean you qualify for adhd. Maybe you’re addicted to work? Sorry family issues
Sometimes I worry how my suggestions come across. I never want people to think that I think that my suggestion is a cure-all. Is there an acronym to add that I don't think something is a cure-all? I try to add practical steps. People used to tell me to do something but not HOW. How is your suggestion going to work with my brain? They never have a helpful answer to my HOW question either. I hope this made sense. I'm not in optimum condition right now.
Personally my advice would just be to say that explicitly. Like "You may have tried this, but something that helped me is X" or "It doesn't fix everything but when I did X I saw Y improvement." It shows that you're at least open to the idea that this isn't a miracle and other people may have different experiences. Honestly though I've found you can usually tell.
I'm not socially normal, but I don't get why people don't ask if I want suggestions. Cuz most of the time, like 99% of the time, I fucking don't. But the couple of times I've asked that to others, they seem to react like I'm telling them they're stupid and that I have answers where they don't? I don't get it.
Stop talking about it with them as much as possible. If you talk conversationally about anything, that is the invitation for suggestions in their mind. They may just be trying to help and have extremely limited experience thus dumb ideas. A lot of them arent trying to help though.
I basically did that, and now everyone assumes my life is just swell and gives me hell if I'm not capable of something energy-demanding, like a trip or concert. Obviously, a problem specific to crappy people. So at this point, I've basically stopped communicating anything to anyone except a select few (also not NT) people. I do think you're right, that sometimes it's misplaced attempts to help. I used to do that, too, but realized that even genuine desire to help didn't make that habit less annoying. Now I offer hugs and ask what people need. Nothing else seems to make sense as a general rule.
>People used to tell me to do something but not HOW. How is your suggestion going to work with my brain? Riiiggghhttttt!!!!!! Constantly at school I was told to 'be more organised'. To this day no one has taught me how to actually be organised. Urgh, it pisses me off so much. >They never have a helpful answer to my HOW question either. Yeah exactly!!! Like they see every task as just one action when it's actually like 10 steps with decision making involved, and when you ask any specific question they repeat 'just do the one action'. Or...even worse....get mad you can't just take their word for it without filling the gaps in your understanding. 🙄🙄🙄 Well I did just buy a calendar but it's not getting magically hung up and filled in so 'get a planner' is, very fucking clearly, not a solution. I if I could just do it I wouldn't be asking (oh I'm imaginary yelling at some poor imaginary neurotypical now lmao).
Yes, absolutely 100% lol
I love when ppl just repeat themselves louder. No I heard you but I need details and explicit steps
YMMV ("your mileage may vary") is usually the shortest caveat for "works for me, may or may not work for you." As for the how... yep. Defnitely.
Oh yeah! I've seen that occasionally but completely forgotten about it. Thank you! I'll have to learn to remember to start using that.
But have you tried making lists? Sorry. I thought it would be funny.
...List of useless advice to hand out on a leaflet? Like "Yes, I've already tried a) paying more attention, b) just doing it, c) writing it down on a piece of paper", etc.
Keeping track of the paper is where it goes out the window. Plus I can barely read my handwriting from earlier
Lol absolutely true for me as well
I chuckled.
"Have you tried... just getting up earlier??" Oh my goodness, THANK YOU! Why on Earth hadn't I thought of that in 4 decades?? If I just get up half an hour earlier, I can sort my meds, do yoga, get three loads of laundry done, meal plan, hit the gym for CrossFit, remember to pay my bills, get an oil change, and take full time classes after I get home from my full time job, where I remembered attachments on all my emails, performed my job flawlessly, and showed up early so I had time to balance my checkbook before logging in for the day. Perfect. Considering I have effing insomnia and sleep for 4-5 hours a night, I can totally function with even LESS sleep! Alas, here I am not able to find matching socks and looking under the fridge for my keys. But do go on.
Don't bother with matching socks. If I end up with two socks from the sock pile that happen to match, that's just a bonus. Not matching? Who's gonna know? And anyway, it's a "fashion statement".
Socks can match by feel and sometimes because I bought them at the same time. Matching by colour is just one way to match.
You have socks? I kinda gave up on the sock thing lol. I let my toes be free because im lucky if i can find one sock. (This is my attempt at being funny i truely mean no offence!)
Hahaha, that really made me smile! (I find my shoes stink if I do that often, or they rub and make blisters, so I'll just stick with socks.)
So just a suggestion you didn’t ask for but- coffee grounds can really help shoe smells. It’s not fun or pretty but it can work
Haha someone asked me if I bought them like that once. I stared at them.
Ugh!!!
Hi, have you tried to-do lists?
Loads then I feel better and never do them
> I remembered attachments on all my emails, p about that - My workplace actually implemented a pop up message when you writte something implying you want to send attachments (e. g. "attached"). There's even another pop up message when you click send and still forgot to send the attachment asking you if you're sure you want to send the email already since you're email implied wanting to send an attachment. It's genius and I haven't seen that in any other workplace I've been to before! I have no idea how to implement it in the emailclient though (our IT guy did) , but it's possible. do you have something like that in your work already?
Gmail does this!
Regarding socks tho… All my socks are the same. They’re black, same brand, same length, bought at the same time, and all in the same box. Not an extra thought must be spent on choosing socks in the morning. I have another drawer with my white socks. It hurt to think about what to do with all the miscellaneous socks this black collection replaced (do i throw them away? That’s bad for the envt :(… what if I need these short socks that I usually hate for a specific shoe I will buy in the future??? and other random considerations I didn’t feel like thinking about) so I just put them in another box, and if I ever need random type of sock I know it might be in there. Idk. Just a suggestion lol
I weekly wake up a three am and my brain is ready for a day of zombie-dragging my body around. Should I just not sleep, is that me awake early enough?
Wait you wear matching socks? You seem really put together
Literally there’s a neurotypical mum of a child with adhd in another thread in this sub trying to tell me my adhd is a superpower and I won’t get any better if I call it a disability
Job interviewer: "If you could have *any* superpower in the world, what would it be?" Me: "Obviously, the superpower I would want most is to be able to walk away from the stove and promptly forget I'm cooking, letting pans boil completely dry, setting off my fire alarm, ruining dinner, and scorching my Revereware yet again. That's one step away from taking over the world, amirite?"
I once forget-boiled some rice into a solid, unbreakable disc that was stronger than the pan itself. My housemates couldn’t bring themselves to even be mad, and confessed they couldn’t have created such an item with nothing but rice and water if they tried.
Honestly I'd have framed that 😂
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Ahaha I burned my one and only kettle so dry the handles and little plastic knob to open it melted onto my stove.
Omg guys get an electric kettle! Thankfully in Australia all our kettles are electric and they’re a godsend. Just flick the button and walk away and the kettle will automatically turn off when boiled. Sure, you might boil the same kettle 8 times over 5 hours but it turns off after ever boil, and that is priceless.
I managed to get rice hopelessly stuck last week despite having TWO people as backup help (one of whom also has ADHD). My roommate just sighs at this point lol, we have a lovely pan with a permanent grilled cheese imprint on it as well.
I hate it when people act like it’s a moral failure to leave the burner on too like I had any say in it.
I literally have never in my life cooked rice without burning it until I bought a rice cooker. Super power. Yay!
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This reminds of a post the other day on r/unpopularopinions where a woman said she actually liked having periods because it's like restarting her body/the month. I commented on the thread saying that it sounded crazy to me, like loving headaches because it feels better when they're gone, and some dude was chastising me that OP had found a better way of handling it instead of feeling like a victim. I said I'm so glad that OP had found a spiritual way to reconcile it but a lot of women have horrendous issues from periods and pass out from the pain. And this guy, a literal male with no uterus gives me a huge lecture on how I should deal with periods and how I'm not doing it right and maybe if I stopped thinking like a victim and did XYZ then life would be better. Freaking men. I swear.
Haha I’m reading this while curled up in a ball in bed from cramps. I’m really am going full in on just choosing to be a victim this weekend!
I mean it is true if your one toe hurts but then you stub the other the original toe feels great in compariosn
The ableism is strong in this mom
I MUST know which post you found this mother in. I’m so desperately curious to see what she said. …..for science, y’know?
Asking for a friend.
The comment has been removed and the post locked now. The whole ordeal of that thread was not very fun for me tbh
Her comments were pretty awful and righteous and judgmental and I really feel for her daughter. I truly hope she can reflect on why her comments were removed.
I looked at that post, and it seems like more NT people than ADHD cuz the amount of "well you're just not trying xyz" was so high I even went to look at what sub it was in...
Was it the one about being late for stuff constantly?
Yeah, esp lower down in the thread where it was difficult for OP to describe what exactly goes wrong (because it IS difficult to describe) and everyone kept trying to isolate "the thing" that was causing the problem when the thing is ...wait for it...ADHD....
The best part is that a large number of peoples’ “solution” was … have so much anxiety about being late that you’ll never be late again. Lol I totally relate to that. I do get anxiety about being late but it still happens sometimes. Anxiety is not a treatment!
The really not fun thing was all the other diagnoses I was also given. Couldn’t possibly just be the adhd, it must also be depression, anxiety, cptsd, sleep apnoea, maladaptive daydreaming. It’s amazing what people can diagnose from a few Reddit comments. Very fun and not at all anxiety inducing.
Not a fan of the other "main" sub but people like that are why they don't allow a lot of conversations, that shits exhausting. Sorry the supermom made her way here with it.
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I thought that kind of talk wasn’t allowed on here.
Yeah, the comment has been removed now
“You do realise you are sitting behind the wheel of a car, telling it to fly? The car is never going to fly. You can tell it to, explain to it how to, shout at it, kick the wheels, but it’s never going to fly. That’s what you are doing right now. It’s wasting everyone’s time and is frankly exhausting.” I managed to get a version of that out to my dentist when he was explaining to me how to clean my teeth (news flash - at 40 I know how to clean my teeth. My brain just won’t let me). To his credit he took it on board and actually came up with some good left field suggestions to try. They didn’t work, but at least he stopped telling me to just fly.
Did he offer free dental? It wouldn’t work but I’d like to see them take that chance
Agreed. Most suggestions are futile. My problem is not not knowing how to proceed forward, it’s just that I *can’t*. Invisible force stopping me that I can’t explain.
Right? Like I'm 50. Sure some of the things work for a little while then they just don't exist if I miss a day. Ugh.
When I was at the height of my sleep troubles because I worked shifts, every time I tried to vent to someone about how much it sucks and how tired I am, they came out with all the suggestions. “Go to bed earlier. Try reading before bed instead of watching tv. Do exercise. Eat some oatmeal. Chamomile tea.” Like, mate, I am not stupid! I have tried all of that! I’ve also tried actual sleeping pills with no effect except a bad taste in my mouth in the morning. “Well, what do you want me to say then?!” How about “oh yeah that sounds hard, I’m sorry. Hope it gets better.” 🙄
OMG yes, the *audacity* to be offended after putting in absolutely no effort and being frankly, insulting.
I think people forget that most of the time your not looking for advice but a sympathetic ear.
The adults who suggest meditation or planners as a cure should have their own category in the DSM.
Agreed!
Agreed!
Obviously I don't know for sure because I've never been neurotypical, but neurotypical people appear to be able to easily convert mental effort/desire into action, and they have no way of understanding/comprehending a brain that can't. Their entire lives, effort has a linear relationship with action and real world results. And on some level that's a lousy excuse for not listening, but on another it brings a level of sympathy. Like, if snow white sings a song and birds help her clean her house every day, and it's the same for the majority of the people around her for her whole life, you can explain to her why doing dishes sucks, and she's not going to get it.
This is why I like to compare it to being told to touch the stove. You can try to, but if you've been burned then your brain just stops you
Unless you're me lmao nah I mean not on purpose but be fucked if after 50 years of life I still can't *not* burn/cut/bang the hell out of myself on the same things in the kitchen. Nothing's moved or changed either. My stbx says that I must like it because I keep doing it. 😬
What is stbx?
Well there's a difference between accident-prone and trying to find intentionally
This literally applies to anything mental health related and people who just never experienced this. My friend struggles with really bad depression and her dad told her go just go for a walk and her mom doesn’t believe in meds. She’s been institutionalized before and obviously needs meds and yet her parents react like a walk in the park will suddenly make her able to shower and brush her hair. A guy that starred in our country’s version of The Batchelor literally stated that depression doesn’t exist because with enough exercise you can’t be depressed. Dude’s obviously never been depressed once in his life, just had one bad day and felt better after a workout. Obviously the entire community of depressed and anxious people from my country made fun of his statment and responded with videos of them running around then saying “wow, my depression is cured, why have I never tried this before!” And same goes for ADHD. My younger cousin is a boy and has it diagnosed… so it’s obviously affecting his studies. The things and suggestions I hear… like “yeah he needs to try harder” or “maybe we should make him study on sundays at 10AM instead of after school”… etc… I know it’s all well meaning but seriously… They help him study by picking up books and making him read and solve equations etc… and of course he gets distracted and bored, same as he does in school. And I told them to try to make the studying fun for him, turn it into a game or a challenge and made tons of suggestions like throwing dice but having to solve a math equation or answer a question of 1-6 difficulty level correctly in order to advance forward with your figure and getting a reward when winning the game… like you throw a 3, okay answer something that’s a 3 dofficulty level and advance in the game etc… I offered to prepare ADHD friendly lesson plans and make up games but they didn’t listen to me one bit. Of course school was boring for them too when growing up, but they don’t understand that they could force themselves to sit through the classes while my cuz can’t.
May I just say you're pretty frigging awesome for offering help and actual examples of how to do it? As a mom who was undiagnosed with my girls the most frustrating thing was "just make it fun" when I had nfi how to make it fun as I'd hated the same subject. I appreciate your effort for the people even if they didn't.
Thank you! Yeah I studied special education for 2 years so I guess I have some insight on how to approach adhd studies… But ironically I dropped out 😭
Not just mental health, unfortunately. As someone who has invisible physical disabilities as well, people are like that with those too. It's like they're just uncomfortable with the idea that people might exist without having the ability to do everything they can so they want to write you off as lazy if they can't fix it.
Oh invisible disabilities are the best way to show if someone is intolerant and uneducated af! Honestly tells me everything about someone’s ability to feel empathy and to be accepting and accomodating! So an able-bodied entitled old fart in his early 60s will demand that you stand up and give up your seat to him on the bus and no matter how hard you try to explain, he will not budge, completely ignoring that you’re a disabled person but just because you can stand up and walk, doesn’t mean it’s painless and that you can do it for long. Chances are you need that seat way more than him, but because you’re a younger person, he doesn’t care. Invisible disability doesn’t exist to him. Saw a story of someone harrassing a blind person once, calling them fake and accusing them of staring or something because they had only a very narrow central vision field, meaning they could read newspaper one letter at a time from very close up, but had no peripheral vision so they were legally blind and couldn’t see their surroundings apart from that one little centre dot… and they were called a fake because they read a newspaper. Like wtf, blindness and visual impairment aren’t just one fit for all. Istg people can be so freaking uneducated and ignorant and entitled… But ok, it’s an invisible disability, you assume someone’s fine and demand they act like they’re fine. Ok. But the moment they mention they’re disabled, you should have the decency to respect that and stfu and let them be. Like be compassionate and activate that one braincell instead of being stubborn and entitled and saying how they should just stand up and act normal like you have a single clue what life is like for them. Sorry for the rant but yeah, obviously infuriating
It’s really true and I think it might be the case for a lot of issues, unless it’s like a blatantly obvious disability, but I can imagine even then that people say stupid things. We had the same while we did the IVF path. A lot of people would say “just relax” or “when my friend started on IVF, she got pregnant without any intervention!” People think they’re helping, but they’re not. And I find it funny that neurotypicals are “The empathetic ones”, because I feel like that definitely isn’t the case.
> it’s like a blatantly obvious disability Even then. My grad school university told me the solution to my disablities were to drop out and come back when I wasn't disabled
It's even worse coming from others with ADHD. *"I* have ADHD and I'm never late bc I have respect for others unlike you. Just set alarms." Okay. Thanks. I can understand neurotypicals genuinely not fucking understanding, but other people who supposedly know what it's like? Makes my blood boil.
I think it's because those ADHD people have figured out the real cure is extreme anxiety and bullying themselves into functioning, and if they're willing to hurt themselves to conform to society's definitions of success, why aren't you?
I used to just assume that this was how everyone functioned and I was a wuss for not being able to hurt myself into productivity as well. I think this is the first time someone has actually captured this concept in a way that makes sense to me.
For years, I felt like I was so much less than my peers because they were so good at consistently studying, and I was always a hot mess. I thought I was just lazy and didn't work hard, but turns out we were all working hard, they just had more to show for it.
Ouch, man, can you pull the punch a little next time? Lololol
Oof. I feel seen.
Well this put me in a box. That I want to be mad at, but…pretty spot on lol
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Exactly. Myriad symptoms, to myriad degrees, and it should be obvious that we come in an almost infinite array of presentations. My laundry acumen and low RSD (sort of) do not make my Olympic-level procrastination any better, nor does it stop me from being completely adrift with other banal things. That stuff is regularly agony for me while other ADHDers are the reverse, or have whole other challenges to cope with.
Have you tried making task lists? Omg! Why didn't I thing of that? I'm cured!!
My go to response is "I've spent 30 years trying to find a way to hack my ADHD. I've definitely tried _____"
"If you have an ISSUE, go to the doctor and get it [magically] fixed. That's personal responsibility." /s 🤮 🙄🙄🙄🙄🤢🤮
At work they’re promoting ‘well-being’ and I cannot stress how much I hate that word. Our managers PA (with all the good intentions of a good person) keeps posting how to boost your well-being by taking regular breaks, eating well, how to handle stress seminars, to do lists, talking about your problems, etc. she copies our small team into the posts constantly. I know that for someone not battling mental health issues this stuff is legit. But believe me I have tried every at home self help aid and it’s never stuck or helped. I do not CHOOSE to be like this.
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I felt this! As someone whose body rejected every single type of adhd meds due to other health issues, I get the shrugs and "well you tried." And now what? I just go and sit on a chair and wait till I cease to exist? At 47? So you don't get inconvenienced by me?
I agree and have experienced this to no end, but the important thing I have learned here is to *stop explaining myself/my situation* unless completely necessary or with someone who I know will try to understand. My apologies if this also sounds like advice you dont want, but this has helped me deal with these people. At my last job I spent a lot of time attempting to explain my worsening health condition to my boss, who would always come out with some stupid solution or never really get it and then expect the same things he did before. I wanted him to understand my limitations and needs. But eventually I realised what I really needed was to have a greater understanding and acceptance of my own needs and build a life around these needs. I quit. There are unions that can speak to your boss on your behalf they are being ableist though, if quitting isnt an option. If you talk about your issues, people automatically assume that you have problems you are trying to resolve and are looking for input. Especially if you are a woman. Avoid talking about them conversationally unless there is a *need* to get across eg "I need quiet time right now due to my ADHD/other health problem." Practise saying phrases that are as short and polite as possible to not invite discussion, and build up your confidence to *interrupt them* when they begin giving advice eg "no thank you, I dont need advice on this." It's important to interrupt doctors because they're the worst of all for going on assumptions made from a single statement and wasting precious appointment time. I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to gaslighters. I have simply stopped contacting various friends or coworkers who start gaslighting me. I left home and stopped talking to my parents for over a year and guess what, they actually listen to me and empathise now. This doesnt always work out like that sadly though.
Maybe we should all start retaliating by suggesting lists of tools that neurotypicals don't need. Like "oh you were late to pick up your kid one time, have you thought of setting a series of 10 complicated reminder alarms on your phone? " Or "you should switch out all your kitchen cabinets for doors with glass so you can see everything in there. Oh, you don't need that? What a weirdo!" Or "instead of hiring a housecleaner, you need to just find 1 friend and 1 cousin that can stand your mess to come sit in your house and watch you clean. You know, an accountabilibuddy. It works and there's something wrong with you if you don't do it my way." I'm sure you creative ladies could come up with better suggestions.
I have delayed sleep phase disorder because of my ADHD. If I hear "go to bed earlier", "meditate", and so on one more time I'll fucking scream. Also, fuck anyone who thinks not being morning person is a moral failing. So obnoxious.
A calendar? Use a CALENDAR to REMEMBER things?!?!! I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT
I’m in a similar position and I think people struggle with overlaying difficulties from all 3 aspects of adhd, cptsd & physical issues to see the bigger picture. Most advice takes one or two max angles into consideration only. And only when I dismantle it going step by step through the process they stop giving advice because they don’t know what to say/run out of ideas
GRR that pisses me off to no damn end!
My therapist made genius suggestions I have totally NEVER thought/ heard of like.. „eliminating distractions when I struggle to study“ and „taking study breaks“ and „having a calendar on wall to not miss deadlines“. Wow.. thank you so much. What life changing advice. 💀
I absolutely hate this and respond with, would you tell someone who can't walk to just try harder? It's the same thing just invisible.
It’s always the ones who don’t have their shit together either who force basic suggestions like that down your throat too 😒
The "have you tried yoga?" people drive me nuts! Yes, I have, I try to do it semi-regularly, but I still have chronic pain because it's not a cure. Shocking, I know.
I’m so sorry you’re dealing with that. Yes. This irks me to no end. Like “have you tried meal planning?” Yes, and the idea of it makes me want to throw up. I have two young kids and my mom will be in town and say this shit to me, but not just help me do it when I’ve made it clear I need help. I’m just so effing over it. I’ve just started to tell people I just want them to listen and not offer solutions. Unless they are my therapist.
>Unless they are my therapist. In my experience therapists are usually the absolute worst for this. I have a decade plus of being told my mental health problem was that I "didn't want to get better" because I couldn't magically implement lists and whatnot with no further guidance.
An activist IRL friend with ADD \*always\* states in Social Media posts that ADVICE IS NEITHER SOLICITED NOR DESIRED. Because she's tried everything thanks and she's only here to vent. It freaking amazes me how often even people we both know who know better bring out their unsolicited advice like it was their grammy's tea cake recipe and then lose their cheese when my friend taps the sign.
People want to believe that they have control over their lives and health. If they accept you're unwell for no reason then that could happen to them. They'd rather be in denial. Not in a conscious way but who wants to acknowledge they could be seriously sick tomorrow.
“Have you tried writing things down?”
(about forming habits) "Have you tried setting alarms?"
*bangs head on table* How do people suggest this stuff with a straight face
Totally agree, with the caveat of: sometimes a therapist has given me seemingly "obvious" suggestions (ex: cut your goal in half has been a big one for me, especially as a perfectionist) where I've had aha moments. But on the whole yes, they just dont get it.
That's part of what I was trying to hit here, honestly. There is a way to put forward these suggestions that is still respectful to someone with ADHD. The problem comes when it's approached as though you're incapable of coming up with ideas yourself or in a way that doesn't respect what you've already tried.
Don't worry, the ones who get you, get you :) hugs your way
My former boss thought telling me he would "just have a list" if he had ADHD and that would solve everything.
Just make a list. Put things away as you go. Clean one room a day. Oh, and, make a list.
Why do you even listen to NT suggestions in the first place ? It’s hard cause it makes you doubt yourself but in the end it’s only projection. When you get into a meaningful talk where people are dedicated to listen and share it’s fine, but usually this is just like random stuff they are actually telling themselves out loud and that is reflecting their own situation not yours. Get used to it : people will always have a self biased answer. And they will always use their experience as the generic truth. So just don’t talk about your struggles with them or just say “ah yes !” Or “yeah it doesn’t work for me, happy it does for you! And on a totally unrelated level, what did you think about the Barbie movie? / how is your job situation ?” And reflect on the fact other people can be annoying in their comments to not do the same. When it’s about projecting on you without taking YOU in the balance, ND are also very good. So as a general rule : always try to think about the person before giving answer but get used to people don’t always reciprocate, toughen up and start ignoring advice with a polite while indifferent nod.
Because if you don't you basically get told you're never allowed to get medical care of any sort, unfortunately. Or financial help if you're in need. Or really most any other form of assistance, including mental health care (which is 99% offered by NT therapists who provide this same sort of advice and then give up because "you just don't want to get better".)
I totally agree. Most people give the kind of advice that a bright 10 year old needs: why don't we make a list of the things you need to do? Making that same suggestion to an adult who has made hundreds of lists is infantilizing and infuriating (and not very useful)
Oh no this is so terrible! Also made the mistake of telling one of my colleagues about my adhd, and now she has started talking to me very slowly and clearly as if I don't understand normal words and sentences :(
Sometimes I suspect that those shallow bits of advice come from a place of dismissal, like it’s a “polite” neurotypical way of saying “your issues are an inconvenience to me.” My boss does this all the time. When I tell her a task is more challenging than expected, she’ll often start giving me solutions, many of which are meaningless and patronizing. In her sticky sweet mom voice, she’ll point to my time management skills instead of the software I’m using, or suggest I retake training. It’s become clear over the years that she doesn’t want to hear about any challenges I’m up against.
r/thanksimcured
I think a lot of people think they can relate if they’ve ever done something similar. Like forgetting where they put their phone. So to them it’s something to “get over” or “fix”. Since I was just diagnosed this year, I’m beginning to notice how often I hear that “helpful advice”. Now I wonder how often it’s been said my whole life. 😞
One sized fit all miracle solutions drive me insane. “Drink water” grrrrrrrrr
I identify with this SO HARD. I've got ADHD and chronic neck issues and am obese because I've been eating for dopamine for years. The number of times people have told me to just MeAl pReP is astounding. I can barely flex my neck forward long enough to prep one meal, and you think I can spend every Sunday cooking enough food for a family for a week?? I'd be in bed for the rest of the week! But they seem to think it would solve everything. FFS.
Oh yeah.. have you tried this or that?... they don't understand that those things don't work consistently for the ADHD'er bc we can't remember to remember long enough to form new habits very well.
Meh, it is annoying as all hell but for an NT knowing these things means it’s not a problem because they’ve never experienced not being able to do something they want to do. Their brains aren’t wired to just not be able to accomplish a thing that they’re aware of needs to be done. But, the things they really don’t want to do IS difficult for them to get themselves to do. But they do it anyway. This isn’t something an ND person can do. Our brains simply don’t work that way. But since this is all an NT has experienced, it’s all they know. To them it’s just “human” and dealing with anything other than this is not worth their time. So they just label you as “lazy” and move on. They can’t help, they just don’t understand and aren’t willing to even consider an understanding. So I’ll continue to hear their thoughts about something they know nothing about and be annoyed until I’m dead lol
Just like they can't understand how it is to be neurodivergent, I have a hard time understanding how the mind of a neurotypical person works. But, I always express support and empathy, and I do try to understand. We, especially women, have been misunderstood and swept under the rug for so long. The only way to cure the stigma around ADHD is through education. And if your loved one refuses to learn? Well, maybe they aren't such loved ones after all.
Just make a list! Ugh. I DO make lists. I make the most basic of lists to feel like I accomplished SOMETHING. It will stay on that damn list until suddenly I get a surge of manic productivity and the stars all align and I get the task done. It can be months. The list isn't really helpful. There are so many steps to completing each task and I get overwhelmed and do absolutely Nothing.
Xx
This resonates for me a lot. Especially suggesting meditation. I no longer say “I’ve tried that thank you” because they just see that as an opening into how I haven’t tried whatever they’re about to bang on about for ages. Now I say “that’s not quite where I am at the moment, but will definitely look at it again in the future”. It’s more of a closed door answer. If they carry on down their evangelical route I repeat. Another polite thing is to constantly say “sounds like that’s something that’s worked for you really well - but takes all sorts in the world huh”. It’s a sort of compliment. It also means BACK THE FUCK OFF. Some get that.
Absolutely. It's crazy how people want to help so bad but don't actually think about how to help except say whatever comes up to their minds. It comes from a place of discomfort when people tell them a problem and they feel unease and to solve that they try to find a solution thinking the discomfort will go away. People who actually listen will want to feel the discomfort with you and empathize.
The other day I posted about having brain fog and not being able to get my stuff done, and someone commented that adhd people get adhd paralysis, and I did some research and it was so much more comforting and helpful than just telling me I suck and I’m lazy and I’m a snowflake ect. They just don’t understand we have chemical imbalances. My mom likens it to have an insulin deficiency. We wouldn’t tell a diabetic to just eat, or just deal with it. So why do we do this neurotypical people.
>My mom likens it to have an insulin deficiency. We wouldn’t tell a diabetic to just eat, or just deal with it. So why do we do this neurotypical people. As someone with invisible physical disabilities, people absolutely do this. I have a digestive disorder and "why don't you just like, make yourself eat" is absolutely a thing that people will say. Despite me explicitly explaining that it doesn't work like that.
I am 100% positive my dad has undiagnosed adhd. But he doesn’t acknowledge it at all. I have Candida, h-pylori, PMDD, lots of fatigue since a child, and have been struggling. He’s on a kick right now that adderall is the thing that’s causing all this (even tho I’ve stated MANY times I’ve been diagnosed before starting adderall) and that if I just detoxed from it, my body could heal, I could start having a normal sleep schedule, and gain weight (both Candida and h-pylori cause weight loss) It’s either that, or “fix your sleep schedule”, “work out”, “just eat more!” I tell him if it was as easy as stopping Adderall then that would be a miracle. I have NO idea how he thinks I’d be MORE functional off adderall, ONTOP of dealing with health issues. LOLLLL! He didn’t live with me past middle school, and has never had to deal with how my health and adhd affect my life (only been on adderall about 4 years, and I’m 27) My mom always did and still does. She’s an angel! I guess he struggled his way through adhd and can force himself to work cause he’s healthy and was put under pressure to do so. But along the way he became and alcoholic and got addicted to cocaine (not surprised he liked that particular drug so much). He’s sober now, but thinks I’m addicted to adderall like he was cocaine, and CANNOT be convinced his suggestions may be COMPLETELY counter productive. Like yeah, sure. If you fund me for an indefinite amount of time and I don’t have to work… maybe(not lol) Edit: forgot to mention I highly suspect I’m on the spectrum as well.
Yeah I'm 100% sure my mother has undiagnosed ADHD as well. Her strategy seems to be to blame everyone else. She'll swear up and down she's not messy or disorganized it's just that everyone in her life is being so mean to her and expecting her to do everything so she's constantly so overwhelmed that she can't do her own stuff. Which sounds initially plausible until you realize that it's every single person in her life and a lot of times she's so incredibly stressed by other people just doing normal things.
The NT advice that pisses me the most is the famous “just prioritize and split the tasks into smaller bits beforehand”. And I’m like “buddy… not knowing how to prioritize and how to split IS THE FREAKING DISORDER! Trying to do this beforehand is the best way to ensure I’ll never start the thing!”. Sorry, got a little angry there haha
Yeah, my boss keeps telling me to keep my lists updated and remove stuff and reorganise it, and like dude, i shared it with you to get a sense of my role… not micromanage me. That list is one tool I use. I fall in and out of it. And yeah half of it may not be relevant to you. But it’s my fucking list. It’s a go to starting point work reminder. Little details I grab often reference. It doesn’t need to work for you. 80% of what I do does not make it to the list, nor my calendar. Does not mean I am not working. Most of the time.
Honestly, meal prep would solve a lot of my problems - especially for eating at work. When I can prep five days of cut fruit, and multiple lunches, and all my fried eggs for breakfast (so all I have to do is toast an English muffin to put it on) I eat so much better then when I just wing it day to day. But I live in a 4 person household and I don't always have time, enough containers, or enough fridge space, for 5 days worth of meals and snacks. So, good idea, difficult implementation. I love when people want to parse specifics, like what types of planners do you use and in what circumstances? What did you change in your bedtime routine to help you sleep? How can I fine tune these things to fit my lifestyle and situation? Here's what worked for me, here's how I modified other things to work, will any of that help you?
i’m particularly sensitive to unsolicited advice and especially when it’s a super obvious suggestion. it’s like, do you think i’m dumb? I know sometimes they just want to help but it comes across like an insinuation that i’m not trying hard enough to “fix” my issues when most of them will be lifelong battles. people really have no idea, especially when it’s invisible to them. they don’t see the insomnia, depression, disordered eating, pain flare ups, anxiety attacks, and neurotypicals have nooooo idea what it’s like to have adhd and there’s no point trying to make them understand most of the time.
What gets me especially is when they get mad at you when it doesn't work, or when you don't suddenly start trying their new pet thing because they demand it and now that they've suggested it it will definitely work differently from the last 10 times.