Latest Posts by harry-potter-scary-o - Page 6

“how could you be so stupid” well you know what. its really not that hard

ADHD is finding yourself washing the dishes, your upper body cold, when you just got up to pick up a sweater, but then remembered that you forgot to apply deodorant, so you do that first ... and somehow you smell nice, wash dishes and you're still cold, and then you remember why

Yes, that was on my mind as well!

Ok I made this reference talking about my job in my crash day post, but I wanna tangent on it a bit because this clip, weirdly enough, describes an ADHD thing perfectly 😛 it's a clip from the episode of My Little Pony called Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3.

In it, Dash demonstrates an "ability" that just kind of comes standard with ADHD sometimes, and can actually cause a lot of frustration for us when we don't know how to explain it to others. See, most people have natural floodgates that let in sensory data that matters and disregards the rest. Neurotypical people can just... Focus on only one thing. Because that's the task at hand. They have no problems paying attention to their teacher in school because the sensory data of listening to their words, reading the board and textbook, and physically writing notes are the only data that matter in that moment. For ME though, those floodgates are busted, and have been blown fully open pretty much since I was born. My brain doesn't have the ability to filter things out— the bright colors of the tree leaves out the window and the sound of the kid next to me tapping their pencil are the same level of priority as what the teacher is saying and the words in the book, so I get kind of force fed or water cured every bit of sensory data I can perceive at the same time. This overflow of data is part of what leads to memory based issues like "inattention" and inability to form habits or memorize things. Everything is coming in all at once, and I subconsciously have no way to sort out the important bits fast enough, so my brain just ends up letting it all kind of run through. As a result, when people ask me "how would you describe your learning style? Are you more of a reading, listening, or watching person?" I have to give the very unhelpful, vague answer of "it depends on what I'm learning and doing? I kind of just absorb information without thinking."

There IS a way to game this glitch and turn it into a feature, though, as demonstrated by Rainbow dash. The trick to paying attention and effectively learning things for us is..... To try to not pay attention 😆 by adding a non-invasive, repetitive, automatic task in the foreground and putting the stuff we're trying to absorb in the background, we can kick our brains into that hyperalertness and soak in info by accident. The foreground task has to be something that doesn't require complex thought, a half-task that's too boring to sustain on its own— examples include jigsaw puzzles, coloring books, knitting, listening to instrumental music that fits what we're doing. Personally, it's one of the reasons I've been enjoying learning to cross stitch lately; it's repetitive and can be as abstract as I want it to be, so it forces me to focus on my surroundings in a meditative way. I can listen to the birds and trees on the porch and relax, or I can pay better attention to the security camera feed and patrol schedule at my new job. I become more conscious of having to flick my eyes through 2 screens, the lobby and windows around me, and back to my hoop, and my brain activates better with the added challenge of speed analyzing at a glance. If I tried to only focus on the feed and lobby and not do my little project, I'd eventually space out and not actually NOTICE any of the things I can SEE. Basically, this new job works for me, because I work like Rainbow Dash— while doing the repetitive background task of flying, she's able to speed analyze her surroundings and actually process her environment better. Us ADHD folks ARE actually paying attention to everything, all the time, we just require that hyperaware, high speed anylization to be activated in order to UNDERSTAND it all.

Something important I heard lately: if you care about that thing you’re not doing, if you want it done but it’s just too much or your brain just won’t let you do it or you just can’t no matter how much you want to and how much you hate it not being done, you’re not lazy.

Lazy people don’t care about messes and unfinished work and a million beginnings of a million projects left incomplete. If you do care, you are not lazy. You’ve got something else going on that exists as a barrier for you, and that is not laziness.

Am I getting creepy? How would I know?? I care about them too much to scare them accidentally away! They are calling on the phone now. Right now! What if it's a crush and they secretly know it too?

#accidentally ghosts them for 6 weeks

In my opinion, the hardest part of ADHD is the constant vigilance. Like, if I'm not aware of what I'm doing every single second, my brain will switch to autopilot and I'll end up hyperfixating on art for three hours or feeding the cats twice or brushing my teeth in the middle of a meal or something

I should do that, but I either:

- fizzle out in doubt 3 seconds into asking if you want popcorn and weird myself out as well

- focus my entire being on my motives of asking if you want popcorn to make sure it's not a weird impulse

- stay happy and say wrong thing ("I hate popcorn with you"), continue watching the movie oblivious, and after few weeks of this you'll think I'm passive aggressively eating that popcorn, because I'm still insisting on popcorn each movie night, and said a dozen other (untrue) things

because that's what ADHD taught me. I need to communicate, with care.

if you ever want to talk to someone. talk to them!!! if you ever want to be friends with someone. talk to them!!!! if you ever face any issues and need help. ask for help!!!! if you are uncomfortable in a situation. express yourself!!! if you like someone. tell them!!! life is not going to take you anywhere if you do not act. cliche and all but life is actually too short to think too much about your normal actions. sometimes, you just need to communicate.

trying to remind myself to not say “i’m sorry” when i really mean “i just expressed my feelings, and i’m worried about how you’ll respond because i’m used to being dismissed or gaslit due to past unhealthy relationships”

#this human will accept any harmful interference

#this human will not generate any harmful interference

Oh no I did something maybe possibly irritating or weird.

Now I will weird out us both while I additionally withdraw because I start overwhelming myself.

sorry for ignoring you ive been going insane

to not accidentally appear creepy and overzealous, I will now spend three months pretending I don't love you and don't think about you all the time. Until you're convinced I'm not cool but heartless and loses any interest you had. Also I don't think you could ever be interested in me, so I just accept it and start writing anonymously on Tumblr instead. All because I have poor sense of time and timing thanks to ADHD and for me it was happiness, like no time at all has passed.

So frustrating when you have so much to say but aren’t articulate enough to get it across. Like I want this to sound poetic but here i am rambling bs