#adhd depression

[turns-out-its-adhd]

Why am I in my mid 30s still feeling like the weird kid no one wants to sit with.

Like I'm scrawling my life in a crayoned chaos while they all flow in elegantly inked cursive.

Like I'll always be catching up and just as I think I might get there I realise I wasn't even running on the real track.

#neurodivergence #neurodivergent #adult adhd #adhd #audhd #adhd things #neurodiverse stuff #adhd mood #adhd depression #social anxiety

[1sneakysquid]

Hard Week in little Brain

I'm having a hormonal fluctuation or backlash at the moment and this week has been full of nervous anxiety/dread. It's not a great feeling, and I often end up drifting from the ADHD-spurred anxiety attacks into the depressive episode that comes as a defense mechanism from the overload of feelings my body is creating. This puts me in a difficult position because it creates the feeling that:

I want to do things that I love as a distraction; I would like to be creative, I would like to fixate on something positive, etc...

I cannot fixate on anything because everything feels like too much input on an already oversaturated brain.

I end up feeling nothing internally, while still reacting to other people's art. Which drives me back into the circle of "I want to create something like this", but without any capacity for emotionally driven force. So I can't draw anything, because I can't connect with what I'm drawing.

All in all- it's not a great place to be, and I'm hoping that some horizontal time (what we call non-napping lay down time to regenerate here at home) and trying a different form of art than I usually do. See you all as things improve!

#mental health #adhd depression #I want to make beautiful poignant art but my brain says f off

[angermgnt]

Anger

Anger, in ADHDrs, arises from a negative event. The event causes our brains to run through a 10,000 node decision tree and tell us that either something is doesn't meet our expectations or something is not fair.

We respond in 5 different ways:

Flight

Fight

Observe & Investigate

Cry

Depression

Provided here is a brief discussion of the concepts listed above and how they affect you. Hopefully, this starts a larger and expanded conversation about how to resolve anger faster.

Expectations

What did you want instead of what you got?

Expectations are a rich ground for which anger or happiness can sprout from. You should never give up on what you expect to happen, it may just be that the way you are going about it won't get you what you want. Therefore, project management is always the best course when managing expectations.

While getting what you want is the end result, how you get there affords many different paths. Some slower than others, so legal, some easy, some hard. But, there are many paths to the goal. No one path is right or wrong, unless you are stepping on someone elses rights.

The first rule in Project Management is .. Manage Expectations .. That means that you and anyone involved in this project needs to communicate what their expectations are, and hammer out how they are all going to be met. Or, if they can even be met. This resolves a lot of anger issues right off the bat.

Fair

Fair is not equal. Fair is not equity. Fair is what works for you to allow you to do the same things that others can do. For example, if you are in a wheel chair, then having a ramp to enter a building that has stairs is fair. There are other examples of fair for executive function, emotional dysregulation, and stimming. Just to name a few other problem areas, but these are internal vs external disabilities. And, it is much easier for the general audience to understand fair based on an external disability.

If someone else is allowed to play baseball in a park, and you are able to play baseball, then why can't you play baseball in the same park? The same goes for any other activity. Voting for example. But, what some people consider equality is that you have your park to play baseball in, and we have ours, and the two shall not cross. Like good and bad neighborhoods. You stay in yours and I'll stay in mine. (I think this is called Segregation.)

Fair happens when everyone has an equal shot at the same spot based on a lot of mitigating factors. It may not seem like it's equal when you don't make the cut, but at the same time, others who where kept out due to mitigating factors who also show promise are let in, get a chance to improve their entire community. This is the impetus of Affirmative Action, and H1B visas, or partnering with overseas corporations to produce American Consumer Products.

Flight

When something doesn't go the way we expect it to or doesn't seem fair, the first response to most situations for NeuroTypcials is to flee the scene and recover. This is a normal and expected response.

You see an angry tiger swatting at people and suddenly you realize that it's coming your way. What are you going to do? Are you trained to wrassle with anger tigers? Because, if not, then you're probably going to run and find shelter until the angry tiger moves on and then come out get to a safer spot.

Fight

ADHDrs come with a built in Challenge Accepted circuit, so most of the times we will engage in a fight for our rights and what's fair. This could be a physical fight or a legal battle or a battle of wills. But, it's that challenge circuit that gets many of us hauled in front of a judge to explain our actions.

Observe and Investigate

Some people when they get angry, use the energy to fuel their curiosity and investigate the reasons why their expectations are not being met. This may result in further actions being taken to resolve the disparities between their expectations and reality. This could be in the form of a letter writing campaign, telling a story, filing a law suite, or taking matters into your own hands.

As always, be careful when being a vigilante. You will find with most Republicans won't be interested in your plight until they have experienced the same trap you fell into and let them complain about their situation to other republicans for sympathy.

The idea here is to repurpose that challenge circuit into an .. I'm going to show you who's right and wrong in this situation .. mode and build a case that enumerates why your expectations are correct in how something should be handled, and how the other guy's expectations / response was not or inappropriate.

Cry

Crying is the physical expression of feeling helpless in a situation while you try to think of a way out of your situation. There is a difference between crying to alleviate emotional stress and using crying to guilt someone into doing something for you.

ADHDrs can handle kaos. ADHDrs can't handle stress.

When the stress becomes too much for our brains / bodies to handle we start to cry. There is nothing wrong with this. Have the cry, let your system reset and begin to move on. It's ok to let others see you cry as well. Nothing to be embarrassed about.

Crying becomes a problem when it's used to manipulate others to get what you want by guilt tripping them into changing their mind. Most of the time, all it does is annoy others who are trying to help you.

Depression

ADHD depress is not like NeuroTypical depression. ADHD depression is caused by a singular negative event that causes a chain reaction or cascade reaction in our brains. A thought storm is created when our brains start looping through all the negative events from our past, the inner monologue becomes negative, and all our thoughts about our self become negative.

While Depression and Anger are part of the 5 Stages of Grief.

Denial

Isolation

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

AHDrs need to reframe the original negative event in order to get out of the depressive state. Or, we need so many happy events that no negative thought has room to create a new negative emotional response and kickstart the whole process over again.

There is nothing wrong with being angry and depressed about a situation that hasn't gone the way you expected or needed it to. Whole drama series are written based on this concept. People make decisions hoping for the best outcome, but instead get the worst outcome and have to work their way out of it. It makes for great theater and entertainment. It's not so good when it's real life.

You were hoping to get into the college of your dreams and it didn't happen. Or, you lost someone special to you, even before you hand a chance to say good by or understood what it meant that you would never see them again.

Sometimes it takes time to process the emotional attachments you had to an expectation.

Resolving Anger

There is a better way. And, either you will find it, or your ADHD associative brain will find it for you.

Remember to take into account all the possibilities of a situation where the answer could be NO! The NO! may be to the specific path you are taking. So, remember there are other paths. They may be longer, harder, and cost more, but they do exist.

Remember that ADHDrs have event driven emotions. One negative event can cause us to spiral into a negative thought storm where our thoughts, inner monologue and memories constantly dredge up all the nasty shit that has failed in our lives. There are two ways out of this .. reframe the original event, or curate so many positive events it leaves no room for the negative events to continue.

Remember to remind yourself that you are no longer in the situation that made you angry the first time. The anger will be triggered over and over again, by similar issues. That current issues, is not the previous issue. Don't let it suck you back into the old issue. Remind yourself that you're not there.

If you don't find a way to resolve your anger, and it's getting in the way of your brains ability to function, your Associate Brain will wrap up all the memories, tie them into a bow, and seal them off from you. It will be as if the entire experience never happened. This is what happens to children who have experienced very traumatic incidents in their lives.

Conclusion

As I wrote this piece I thought of many different ways that ADHDrs could become angry. Suffice it to say, this piece focused on having the expectation of not getting financial aid or some other subsidy vs loosing a loved one, or the many other issues that could cause anger to arise. Each has it's own unique flavor on how is should be handled. But, in looking at these other situations, I the general principle on dealing with anger still holds true. Manage your expectations, have back up plans in place, reframe the issues causing anger, and remind yourself that it won't matter in time.

#anger #anger management #working with adhd #adhd at work #project management #education #negative events #coping skills #10000 node decision tree #reframe issues #you're not there anymore #associative memories #depression #adhd depression #anger from loss #stages of grief #Equality #Equity #Fairness #Fight or Flight #Crying #Emotional Release #Guilt Tripping #Observe and Investigate #Challenge Accepted #manage expectations

[melxhunter]

I feel like there are a lot of people out there who needs to hear this:

If you dropped out of school because of diagnosed (or undiagnosed) ADHD, Autism, ADD, OCD, Dyslexia, Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders, schizophrenia etc… You did not fail. The education system failed you.

#neurodiverse stuff #i cannot say this enough #neurodivergent #actually adhd #adhd problems #autism #just autistic things #actually autistic #actually bpd #actually mentally ill #actually disabled #depressing shit #this gave me more emotional damage than my dad #i am going to rant #i am going insane #dropping out #school problems #send help #you can do this #you cannot convince me otherwise #you can't change my mind #you can do it #i believe in you #i believe in their healing powers #i believe in myself #academic assignments #assignmentwriting #assignment help #in this essay i will

[caseywond3r]

hey guys so apparently this is a thing a lot of people don't realise but like. if you have had writer's block/ art block for like. six months. a year. two years. that's maybe not a block. that's maybe depression. and you should maybe look into treating the source of the problem instead of just beating yourself up for not being able to write/draw. be kind to yourself and know that your struggle to create isn't based in laziness or a lack of skill or talent.

#mental health #adhd #depression #art block #writers block #caseys important stuff

[madpunks]

poor memory is a huge deal and i wish people wouldn't diminish it by saying "oh yeah i can't remember what i had for breakfast lol."

i can't remember the first 10 years of my life. i can't remember entire days, weeks, months at a time. i can't remember entire people, i can't remember names or faces. i can't remember when things are scheduled for, my calendar app on my phone is booked to the max with reminders and task checklists. i can't remember when i moved into what home when, i can't remember important milestone dates like when i got or lost certain jobs, or when i started a new hobby.

that's what i mean when i say i have poor memory. poor memory is so scary for the person who has it. it's not a quirky thing, everyone forgets small details. memory problems are scary because you can go through entire events or days with no memory, or plan for things in the future that you can't recall ever even looking into or scheduling. it's not a funny haha kind of thing, it's serious, and it affects a lot of people in very unavoidable ways.

not being able to plan for appointments or work schedules, not being able to remember people's names or faces, not being able to recall whether or not you were present for something or whether or not you met someone, not being able to keep track of what's happening on what dates and losing track of items because you can't remember where you put them are all very real problems, and anyone dealing with them deserves to be taken seriously, and not diminished when they choose to speak up about it.

#neurodivergence #mental health #adhd #did #ptsd #mental illness #schizophrenia #ocd #anxiety #generalized anxiety disorder #depression #bipolar disorder #bpd #borderline personality disorder #neurodivergent #autism #mental health awareness #dpdr #osdd #dissociative disorders #dissociative #depersonalization derealization #other specified dissociative disorder #memory problems #poor memory #learning disorders #chronic fatigue #neurological disability #neurological disorders #traumatic brain injury

[genderjuicee]

hate when ppl only view being autistic/adhd/neurodivergent as a bad thing

bc yes i will have a breakdown if it is to loud or a noise is to high

but also the other day i listened to a song and it triggered the happy chemicals and spent thirty minutes jumping around my room and spinning and stimming and it was literally the happiest ive ever been in years

#fairly certain this was a result of my audhd #geniunely the happiest ive been it at least 3 years #think my depressions starting to actually get better #should start demasking more #its to bad my mask is deeply ingrained in my identity lmao #autism #audhd #neurodivergent #adhd #actually autistic #actually adhd

[futureless]

i be in my own head fighting for my life

[mavigator]

i talked about it a little bit already but i have things to say about it. for context, i was born with amniotic band syndrome. the amniotic band wrapped around my left wrist in utero and stunted the growth of my hand. i was born with about half a palm, four nubs for fingers, and a twisted half of a thumb. i can open and close my thumb and pinkie joint like a claw.

yesterday at work i had a shift in the room with 5-10 year old kids. i had my left hand hidden in my sleeve (a bad habit of mine). a kid asked if he could see my hand, and even though internally i was debating running into traffic, i said “sure you can” and showed him my hands. he stared for a moment, looking disturbed, and then said “i don’t want to look at that anymore”. that hurt to hear, but i understand that kids are new to the world and he probably didn’t mean it out of malice. i put my hand away again, told him that it was okay, and that i was just born that way.

he then went on to talk about how he knows a kid with a similar hand to mine and called it “ugly”. i told him that wasn’t a very kind thing to say and that he wouldn’t feel good if someone said that to him, and he replied that no one would say that to him—because he has “normal hands”, and he’s glad he does because otherwise he’d be “ugly”. i tried to talk with him for a bit about how everybody is born differently, but he just started talking about a girl he knows with a “messed up face” and pulled on his face to make it look droopy. i went on some more about how it wasn’t very kind to talk about people that way, but the conversation moved on to something else.

i’ve told my supervisors about it and they’re going to have a talk with his mom. what i wanted to say is this: i’m genuinely not upset with the kid. kids are young and naturally curious, and he clearly simply hasn’t been taught about disabled people and kind ways to speak to/about others. which is why i am upset with his parent(s). i know he’s encountered visibly deformed/disabled people before (he said so himself!), yet his parent(s) clearly haven’t had any kind of discussion with him about proper language and behavior. i knew from birth that some people were just different than others, but my parents still made a point to assert to be kind to and accepting of others. i wonder if adults in his life are the type of people to hush him and usher him away when he points out someone in a wheelchair. that kind of thing doesn’t teach politeness. it tells children that disabled people are an Other than can’t be acknowledged or spoken about; which, to a child, means disability must be something bad.

i’m lucky enough that this was a relatively mild incident, and that i’m a grownup with thicker skin. i’m worried about the other kids he mentioned to me. has he been talking to them this way? when i was a kid, i had other kids scream, cry, and run away at the sight of my hand. or follow me around pointing at me and laughing at me. or tell me i couldn’t do something because i was ugly or incapable or whatever. one time a girl at an arcade climbed to the top of the skeeball machine, pointed at me, and screamed at me to put my hand away and wouldn’t stop crying until she couldn’t see me anymore. another time, a kid saw my hand, screamed at the top of her lungs, and ran into my friend’s arms, crying hysterically about how i was scaring her. that second incident made me cry so hard i threw up when i got home. i can kind of laugh it off now, but having people react to me that way as a child is something i’m still getting over. why do you think i have a habit of keeping my hand in my sleeve? it just irritates me to see children that have clearly not been taught basic manners and kindness—their parents Clearly missed something pretty important .

#and for the record i consider my deformity pretty mild. maybe i’m just used to it but things like amniotic band syndrome can turn out a lot #more severe. i rarely even call myself disabled because i don’t feel like the term is applicable to me. i’m more hindered by like #my adhd anxiety depression etc than i am my hand. so for those kids to react that way to what i THINK #is a pretty small thing. makes me worry about people that are more visibly disabled #Kids.That are more visibly disabled

[crohniewitch]

#memes #depression memes #adhd memes #people pleasing #trauma memes

[thebibliosphere]

"Hi, I bought your book and read it in two hours!" remains one of the most flattering and terrifying messages you can send me.

Who are you people? What old god did you sell your soul to that you can read that fast? That's 500 pages! I mean, good job, but holy shit.

#I haven't been able to read like that since I was a teenager #maybe it's the ADHD burnout #maybe it's the chronic depression #idk #I am envious #i want what they have

[martini-garnish]

I like that after years of everyone hypothsizing that Lucifer is a dismissive asshole who doesn't give a shit about Charlie or her ideals we finally learned that he's just got a plethora of mental illnesses that effect motivation and memory.

And he misses his wife, Tails, he misses her a lot. He has to go.

#hazbin hotel #lucifer morningstar #this guy has and adhd depression combo of course he cant keep track of shit #hes so silly though i like him quite a lot

[slithymomerath]

They don’t want us medicated (“do you want to be dependent on that for the rest of your life?”), they don’t want us unmedicated (“please stop doing xyz, why can’t you do abc?”), they just want us to stop being neurodivergent.

#also applies to physical disabilities and literally any condition that requires medication #you could even stretch it to trans people #’stop being depressed’ ‘stop taking hrt’ which is it then? #under the surface ​it’s always just ‘stop being the way you are’ #neurodivergent #adhd #adhd meds #medication #campost

[yousaveeveryonebutwhosavesyou]

What really sucks is when you know you should be doing something but physically/mentally cannot bring yourself to do it no matter how important doing that thing is.

#mental health #mental illness #mental illnesses #depression #anxiety #bpd #bipolar #ed #ocd #important #self care #self love #adhd #autism

[thehavenmh]

#therapist #therapy #mental health #mental illness #bipolar #depression #anxiety #adhd #ocd #suicidal ideation #pingu

[madpunks]

we are so ableist about memory. people with good memory take for granted the fact that they can recall as much as they can, and use that to taunt, guilt and threaten people with memory issues. many neurotypes and mental illnesses cause memory lapses. traumatic brain injuries can cause memory lapses. brain cancer can cause memory lapses.

even if your memory is good, it's not right to guilt someone because they can't remember something. trust me, people with memory problems are desperately trying to remember: it's just that we literally can't. it is a very literal "i can't remember".

#adhd #psychosis #psychotic disorders #autism #memory problems #memory issues #did #dissociative identity disorder #dpdr #osdd #mental health #neurodivergences #schizophrenia #schizohprenic #actually autistic #actually adhd #actually schizophrenic #depression #our writing