Add the extra layer of my mother not appreciating my interests and thinking what I now do for a living was a waste of time… And a dash of expecting me to somehow just be able to perfectly do chores they never taught me how to do when I was young. Yes, this is the first time I’ve ever mopped a floor at 17 years old. How the fuck is that my fault?
Shit, sounds a lot like my mom. She always complained I never helped with chores, but she never asked or told me to do any. Worse, whenever I did anything, like washing the dishes, instead of saying “thanks”, she would tell me to stop because she’d do it.
I remember this progress as a kid. Nothing was taught until after I did something wrong. It ended up discouraging me from trying, because every time I did something that I thought was “right,” my mom complained about it.
At first the rule was “put dirty dishes in the sink.”
Then when I put dishes in the sink, the complaint became, “Why did you put dishes in the sink without washing them?”
So then I learned to wash dishes, and set them in the drying rack. To which my mom would complain, “Why are there dishes in the drying rack? You should put them away.”
Okay, so I washed and put dishes in the cabinets. “Why are the dishes all wet?”
…
How about teaching kids each step beforehand, instead of complaining that they don’t magically know/do everything?
I feel fucking seen by this post
It rings right to my core
Same, feels very uncomfortable to confront personally. Ooof size: collosal.
Most of the drug users and smokers are above average intelligence. Most of the intelligent people are depressed.
Great job world.
Yep. I’ve had substance abuse problems and severe depression my whole life. I’ve had people telling me I have “genius” intelligence but I can’t do some of the most basic tasks like paying bills and managing finances and making any plans for my future whatsoever.
But I know quantum physics! Lots of use for that shit, right?? I can’t count the number of job interviews where the hiring manager asked me about interactions between quarks and the strong nuclear force.
As an aside my therapist just diagnosed me as autistic, as a middle-aged man that’s a whole basket of cats I don’t know what to do with yet.
My man I feel for you there so much it hurts.
Interviews in jobs suitable to my intelligence level:
“Wow that’s quite some knowledge! But have you been doing only this and nothing else for 15 years with certified evidence of steady infinite progression with no stopping?”
Interviews for jobs I might have a shot at:
“So on your availability here I notice you said Monday through Friday but can I pull you for holidays and weekends on short notice anyway? We work hard and play hard like a family here heh heh…So what is your definition of ‘solid gold standard servitude in worship of The Customer?’”
Keep it up with these posts, if I share enough of them with my clearly very painfully obviously super adhd girlfriend I might eventually convince her to go see a therapist and seek a diagnosis someday
I hope she does. I don’t think I’m ADHD but my partner was just diagnosed a few months ago. Now that we think about it it’s not a surprise at all lol
It feels really nice to have more understanding and more context for both of us.
I think it will help too. She resists by saying “well what will it really change?” but it can and will change quite a lot if she understands how her brain works and can build some support structures to help with it. She really doesn’t want to be medicated either which I totally get.
Call her doctor, make an appointment, save it in her calendar, remind her in the lead up, drive her there, get the referral. Walk her to the post box to send it off, sit next to her to phone the intake office to confirm they got the referral, set appointments on her phone for every 6 months to sit with her and call to check the cancellation list until you get an appointment. Drive her to that appointment.
If she has ADHD, the steps involved in getting a diagnosis are bigger than Mt Everest, she will need a neurotypical Sherpa.
Call her doctor
Agh, they usually say “The patient needs to be the one to make the appointment.” >:(
But, yeah OP, if you are right there with her every step of the way, she can do it, and I bet that would be very helpful, like bowling with guard rails! She can feel the empowerment of doing the work, but you’re there to bump away the possibility of falling off into failure. :)
Call her doctor
I should have been more specific. Find a time when she’s not doing anything urgent, tell her it’s time to call the doctor, pick up her phone and dial the doctor, put them on speaker and put the phone down next to you while you body double your partner as they gone through the motions of locking in the appointment.
While on the phone your partner can also give third party authorisation. It’s the first thing I do when I meet a new provider, I give third party authorisation to my partner and mother so they can make appointments on my behalf (they can’t get results for me, but they can schedule things for me)
having grown up with ADD and ADHD being huge in schools and then reading countless studies over the past few decades about how inaccurate diagnoses and the understanding of ADD and ADHD are, I will be very cautious in administering any medication to my children for popular syndromes.
I grew up in such times, myself. I was diagnosed as likely ADHD as a child but never treated because of a mix of stigma and my parents taking that exact reasoning. This led to a childhood of anxiety, academic issues, depression, social awkwardness, and struggling in university, despite having no problems understanding the coursework. As an adult, it caused problems in work and relationships.
I received a diagnosis of “minor adult ADHD” about 5 years ago and received treatment for the first time in my life, which has been life-changing.
My point is: don’t underestimate the impact and trauma caused by living in this society without help to compensate for the challenges that neurodivergent brains have to deal with.
neurodivergence, adhd included, is actually widely underdiagnosed - some doctors estimate 1 in 5 people is neurodivergent. And those rates have been rising (though possibly because of increased acceptance)
I recently read an article about a doctor who was making a case that the issue is not that those 1 in 5 are “neurodivergent”, but our current society is causing harm. When he sees ADHD symptoms his first “treatments” are proper nutrition, making sure they feel like they’re doing meaningful things in life, enough exercise, etc…
I’m also sometimes starting to wonder if for a part we’re not just medicating people to “thrive” in a society that’s inhuman, rather than make society work for as many people as possible.
But it’s of course a very complex & grey area, and let’s be honest, something as vague as ADHD probably encompasses a lot of different causes. And it’ll probably take decades of research before we actually manage to split up all the things that are today lumped together into the separate things with each their own propert treatment.
What are you talking about, spending 8 hours a day in a chair staring into a light-up rectangle and getting yelled at over the phone is the natural human state, and anyone who can’t force themselves to do so has something wrong with them.
Seriously, though, the problem is real. A psychologist can be fully aware the patient has anxiety about paying rent because they can’t make rent, but the only tool available to help them in a professional capacity is treating the anxiety. Same goes for depression and the rest. Hell, thinking about it now, same would have been true of drapetomania.
right, and with that sort of prevalence, and so little detrimental effects to society, there isn’t good enough evidence for advocating “treatment” of most people who just think differently than other people.
largely, they notice or pay attention to different things, so “treatments” are unnecessary, obtrusive or damaging.
exception given to extreme cases, “treating” ADHD seems a lot like removing funding for arts courses because school administrators don’t value the arts.
Hi. I failed out of college, in no small part due to undiagnosed ADHD. I wanna offer a little pushback.
I can’t tell if you want to change society to be less punishing to neurodivergent people, or if your whole thesis is “People with ADHD have little to no trouble in society today”.
If it’s the former: not treating people who are struggling is not the way to change society. Accepting for the sake of argument that ADHD people “pay attention to different things”; paying attention to some things is critical to my ability to thrive. I would love to live in a world where I could just do what I thought was important and still have my needs taken care of, but unfortunately I’m stuck needing to pay attention to stupid bullshit I don’t care about in order to make a living, and that’s a tremendous struggle without medication.
If it’s the latter: Jesus Christ, talk to someone with ADHD.
And finally: I take issue with your metaphor at the end. What do you think is present in an unmedicated person with ADHD that is somehow missing in a medicated person?
“less punishing to neurodivergent people”
I mostly agree with this.
“People with ADHD have little to no trouble in society today”
i disagree, that is antithetical to my previous comment.
that said, neurotypical or divergent, if you don’t have trouble in society today, I want to know more about your society.
“not treating people who are struggling is not the way to change society”
yes, and neither is treating people who don’t wish to be treated or are treated unnecessarily.
are you sure you’re responding to the right comment? I haven’t said many of the things you are arguing against so far.
“and that’s a tremendous struggle without medication”
then according to my previous comment, you are one of the extreme cases that need and want intervention, and should receive it.
“I take issue with your metaphor at the end”
I gather from your preceding assumptions and arguments against things that I have not said, along with your general combative tone, that you have been quixoticaly swept up in an imagined narrative that you feel you must do battle with.
“What do you think is present in an unmedicated person with ADHD that is somehow missing in a medicated person?”
missing? nothing.
we don’t give a shit what “detriment to society” adhd is. Executive dysfunction is detrimental to the quality of life, and that’s one symptom amongst many
the society was built for neurotypical people, and so neurodiverse people need help to function in it in a way that doesn’t make them feel worthless - and that means treatment, be it with therapy and/or meds
“Executive dysfunction is detrimental to the quality of life”
stroof.
“neurodiverse people need help to function in it in a way that doesn’t make them feel worthless”
some neurodiverse people do, but your reasoning implies that neurotypical people do not feel worthless in today’s society.
that’s a take that won’t stand up to much scrutiny.
“…treatment, be it with therapy and/or meds”
apparently we’re in agreement.
treatment, when necessary, effective, and desired, should be available.
There are lots of boring un stimulating tasks that are super important that’s the issue. I have adhd and I cope with my issues to be able to be a functional adult. Things like the dishes and the laundry and cleaning need to be done. Some task that seem repetitive for forcing a basic understanding of the subject. I’ve met so many people in my field who are adhd and say they are super productive on complex tasks but lack basic understanding on fundamental subjects in the field because they skip all the “boring stuff”. Life is not always exciting or stimulating sometimes you have to force yourself to do something. Neurotypicals do the same thing.
The difference with ADHD, especially untreated ADHD, and the idea of “sometimes you have to force yourself to do something” is that, as a person with ADHD, trying to force myself to do stuff, without the assistance of medication, can often be a bit like trying to nail jello to the wall.
It might work for a short time, but eventually, it’ll be laying on the floor, not doing what you want it to do… Much like me.
The paralysis is very real and very strong. The contrary feelings fighting eachother in your head, one voice saying how important it is and that you need to do it, another that’s breaking down the task into every motion required, so one job becomes a quintillion individual steps, which makes you feel overwhelmed and anxious at even the thought of trying to do the job, and another voice berating you for being a lazy fuck who can’t even do the most simple shit, like get off the couch and do the thing.
In the end you just feel horrible, both about the thing you should have done and about your worth as a person, leading to depression, which exacerbates the issue further.
It’s a cycle of violence that most ADHD people have suffered with for their entire life.
Well thanks for confirming that I’ve had undiagnosed ADHD for my entire life.
I know. I am diagnosed adhd and untreated training your willpower and your self control is possible. It requires dedication and finding what works right for you. For me I use extreme scheduling, I wake up at the same time every day and sleep at the same time, every meal same time. As soon as I know I need to do something I immediately right it down, dishes cleaning everything is scheduled. It took years but it’s also been working for years. Start small force yourself to do small things. It is harder than it is for a neurotypical but that’s the burden we bare. Best you can do is deal with it using medication, therapy and mindfulness. You are more then your serotonin levels you don’t need to enjoy something to do it. You don’t even need to be engaged. The neurotypical secret is most the things they do they half ass, don’t worry about perfection just do. Another thing I see adhd people have trouble with is trying to multi task all the time. Don’t it’s a trap your brain isn’t ment for context switching that much. You can modulate yourself a lot better then you think you can. It’s just hard but that’s doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing
My work doesn’t afford me to be focused on a single task until completion. That’s the nature of the job I have, and there’s nothing that I can do, nor anything my manager can do about that.
Forcing myself into rigorous scheduling is a trap for my mind. If a task takes longer than expected (which is frequent because I’m also very time blind), then I feel like I’m running behind and I have to rush to catch up. If something takes less time than expected, I end up in the mental trap of “I don’t need to do x until y time” so I go do something else, and that distraction usually puts me behind my schedule, back to the first problem.
I end up constantly panicked because I’m running behind all the time. At the end of the day, though I may have completed everything, and done so in a reasonable timeframe, the only emotion that lingers is the feeling of disappointment in myself, that I couldn’t keep up with the schedule.
That feeling leads to depression, which leads to me giving up on the entire system, after skipping it for several weeks and being “several weeks behind” on everything; and that leads to further depression.
If your scheduling thing works for you, awesome, I’m glad you found something that works for you, for the reasons I’ve stated and so many more, it does not work for me.
However, I recognise that you’re saying this because you found what works for you, and it’s brought so much order to the chaos that is normal for your mind from before; and you want to help others find the same happiness you have using this method. That’s fine, and I hope your comment helps someone. I’m not that someone. I appreciate what you’re trying to do here regardless.
I have my own solution now, and it’s working quite well for me. My doctor and I built the therapy that I use to maintain order in the chaos of my life and mind, and I recognize that my therapy isn’t going to work for others. Which is why I’m not saying what it specifically involves. I will say that medication is part of it. It works for me, and if anyone wants to pursue something similar, they should talk with their doctor about what therapy might be right for them.
I won’t tell you that your methodology doesn’t work, it clearly does. It works for you.
The only point I’m trying to make here is that, though it may work for you, it may not work for others, and they will have to find a different solution and/or therapy for themselves which works for them.
There is no universal solution for ADHD. For some it can be managed with mindfulness, scheduling, and a force of will, and little more. Others may need assistance in the form of gadgets, widgets, and thingamajigs (maybe fidget things? IDK)… Others may only need a small amount of medication to manage it, and others may need multiple medications before they see the results they’re after.
All of these methods of therapy are valid for the people that benefit from them. Most of them won’t work for most ADHD people, they’ll have to find which one is going to work for them, and it’s likely that one or more will work, they’ll just have to figure out which one is the best for them by working with their doctor to figure it out. Hopefully that doctor is a psychiatrist with a specialty in ADHD; but I digress.
I’ve tried most of what you suggest and it did not work for me. That’s fine. It works for you and I’m happy for that. The fact that I couldn’t use that method to overcome my challenges, doesn’t, and shouldn’t imply that I’m somehow worse for it, or that I lack willpower, or that I can’t make the hard choice or make the sacrifice to make it work. I’m easily one of the most willful people I know, even before I started my current therapy. The condition is simply more complex than a matter of having the willpower to overcome it. That may work for some, like yourself; or it may work for short periods of time, like it did for me; or it may not work at all for others. Everyone is different.
