Asklemmy

That we aren't content with our "laziness". I hate being "lazy," but people seem to think being lazy is a conscious choice. Another big one related to "laziness" is the fact that laziness is just the tip of the iceberg, it changes how you think, act, perceive things etc. in a way neurotypicals just can't comprehend.

The more I read all this, the more I understand that I should diagnose for ADHD as those descriptions are just too damn fitting.

I was always sort of smart and stupid at the same time, unable to focus on specific things while being hyper-focused on something not always relevant. Procrastinating like crazy, but when it’s really bad, able to do a lot last minute.

Reading one sentence over and over again and still not knowing what it says is definitely something that did happen to me many times, I'm just focused on something else and cannot help it.

That me starting work at 2 am is not my choice, it's my brain's choice

It's your brain. Advice like "think of what could you have done differently" or "slow down and consider the consequences," etc. does not help in the least, because the part of your brain that does the thinking and the considering and the slowing down is the part that has the problem.

I'm aware that I am a very messy person and I desperately wish I wasn't. My executive dysfunction makes cleaning and keeping things clean so damn hard

Perhaps this is some sort of internalised ableism but I used to have this internal dialogue where I'd reflect on how difficult it was to do "boring" things and a straw man NT person would sarcastically imply that "it must be nice" to have an excuse to get out of "boring" tasks.

Um, fucking no. If you think about it for like two seconds, you realise how much of being a happy, independent and healthy adult relies on being able to complete tasks that aren't immediately captivating. Those tasks still need doing, I don't want someone else to do them for me. You're left with either waiting on when the 'inspiration' strikes you, having to improvise some game or arbitrary reward structure just to clean two dishes or you just rawdog your way through the task and you feel every second of the boredom and come out the other side feeling worse than when you started because no satisfaction from completing the task can pay-back the effort you put into completing it.

That's why ADHD adults burn-out. Without medication, every day you end with a 'motivation deficit' where no satisfaction from completing tasks can cover the costs of the determination and focus one spent to start those tasks. Eventually you just 'default' and you can't do anything any more.

Stimulants to me feel like a small loan on every task. It's a fine balance but they actually let me come out of tasks semi-regularly with more energy/motivation than I started. And when you have a surplus, productivity begets productivity.

Everything, but mostly that it gets its name based on what annoys others instead of what bothers us. Attention problems and Hiperactivity are just two tiny parts of ADHD. There are other much more significant symptoms

In general the disorder is related to not properly processing neurotransmitters so everything that is "managed" by neurotransmitters can be out of whack. And some folks seem to have more problems with one kind of neurotransmitters than others.

Neurotransmitters are things like Dopamine, Serotonin, Endorfine, Noradrenalin. Example of stuff that are managed by them: Movement, control of the body, stress, sleep, attention, memory, learning, inhibition, joy, pain relief.

So, just by that you can probably imagine how broad the effects of ADHD might be.

We still don't know any way to treat the root cause effectively (neurotransmitters being "killed"). The only thing that helps, is forcing the body to generate more of those neurotransmitters, hoping that it'll process more of them that way. That works even with different stuff. If we generate more Dopamine, the body ends up processing more of the Serotonin it already produces too. That's why stimulants work so well at regulating us - it floods our brain with artificial stuff that end up "shielding" the natural stuff to let them do their job too.

That is also why stimulants can sometimes make us more relaxed or even sleepy - it's not that the stimulant itself causes that, but it let's the body finally process everything properly so it can understand that it is supposed to be sleepy.

For someone without ADHD where the neurotransmitters are processed properly, stimulants will do nothing more than stimulate.

Communication is difficult for us. Masking is tiring as fuck.

Executive dysfunction is damn near disabling when I'm not medicated. I struggle with it & decision paralysis even when medicated. It's an unfortunate issue that I'm unsure I'll ever work through.

How fucking hard it is to remember daily and recurring tasks. Taking meds, brushing teeth, checking email, cleaning up, cooking, laundry, on top of stuff related to work.

Another one is that we are blind. Unless I expect to see it, I cannot see it. I literally dont see clutter. Only when I force myself to think about what I'm staring at do I realize there is a bunch of crap on a table. Its really easy for my room to get messy because of this. Because it hardly exists for me.

the problems sound similar to "what everyone has" but they arent the same

Yes everyone struggles motivating themselves to do chores but it's not the same when you have adhd.

Yes everyone has trouble concentrating during a boring lecture/lesson but its not the same when you have adhd.

Yes everyone has the urge to buy stuff they don't need, but its not the same when you have adhd.

It's really tiring to just exist inside your own head.

I've described it before as a box filled with a bunch of bouncy balls just bouncing off on every direction, off the walls, ceiling and floor, all the time. Every one of those balls is a thought, it's really hard to hold onto just one, it's hard to keep one once you've caught it.

When I'm resting usually I just put in some youtube video/TV show/audio book and play some mindless game for a while. On the outside it looks like it just played solitaire for 3 hours straight, but on the inside I'm just trying to follow one line of thought while keeping the rest of my brain occupied and quiet for a second.

It doesn’t manifest exactly the same in everyone with ADHD

We have excess focus just no control over its direction.

A reverse question is actually quite interesting as well:

People without ADHD, but who know others with ADHD: what are the common misconceptions about "being normal"?

Thriving on chaos.

Feeling the calmest when in a tempest.

The amount of misinformation that's out there about it.

Around 50% of TikToks about ADHD are misleading. I feel like we can expect similar results in other social media.

Sorry what were you saying? I was busy thinking of what I would do if gravity reversed.

When there are no more spoons, you need to just go to bed.

That they have it