Do You Have ADHD? Well, May I Suggest That You Do The Thing Right Fucking Now?

Do you have ADHD? Well, may I suggest that you do The Thing right fucking now?

So, I have pretty crippling ADHD to the point that I can't think of a single aspect of my life it hasn't influenced. I also have a shiny medical diagnosis and have since I was seven. I'm in my 30s now. Yet in all that time, with 20+ years of therapy, lots of different meds, and a shit ton of the "why can't you just______" thrown at me by family and authority figures, it wasn't until recently that I truly grasped what time blindness means for me, an ADHD sufferer (yes I am going with sufferer cuz it makes me fucking suffer) in daily life. There's no Later with ADHD. If you know anything about ADHD, you know there's really only things that have happened, what's happening, and an idea of things you want to do with no concrete reality of future things.

And there's lots of cute things you can do to try and fight this. Lists, alarms, clacky bracelets with tasks on them. But all of these things imply that I, the ADHD sufferer, have enough executive functioning to remember to do them. Guess what? I don't. I have next to nothing and I'm lurching from impulse to impulse like a drug addict stumlbing towards a hit. Now, why's this matter? Because sometimes, there's an impulse to Do The Thing that is an actual responsible thing - pick something up off the floor, wash a dish, run an errand, feed a pet, anything even remotely responsible really - just like the impulse to go get a snack or to watch just one more episode of that show that's holding me hostage.

And before I really admitted to myself that my ADHD was a fucking disability and that I was suffering, I'd feel that impulse and go "oh, that's good, I'll do it in a minute" and it would never ever get done. Now? Now I understand, that minute is NEVER coming. It's never going to happen because there is NO SUCH THING as Later for me as an ADHD person. There's only the impulse.

So what have I started to do? Well, it sucks and I hate it but I've started treating the responsible impulses like the candy/tv/fanfic/"ooh shiny" impulse as in a thing I must feed my nervous system the SECOND it happens. No wait, only do. And the thing is, once I started doing that, treating every responsible impulse with absolute immediacy because I had 100% accepted that Later does not exist, yall, shit started getting done. My room started being cleaner, the dishes started getting put away, my laundry started getting done. It was getting done in huge bursts at 2am but it was getting done because I had the thought and went "okay I'll do The Thing right the fuck now." Pausing loses momentum nothing's worse to an ADHD brain than lost momentum.

Of course, NTs tend to want you to do stuff on their schedule, their way. That's a problem of its own so to facilitate this coping mechanism I had to learn to say to the people around me "whatever it is you are asking of me will have to wait until I finish THIS TASK because if I dont see it through, it will NEVER get finished" when following through on the impulse to Do The Thing Right the Fuck Now. Because it won't. If I lose flow, that's it. It's all over. Even writing this post. I had the idea, and now I'm writing it. If I stop it'll be gone. It's a fucking superpower really, both great and terrible. The thing is that harnessing it takes some willingness and an acceptance that us ADHDs do not and will not EVER function in the time stream like other people and a willingness to say so.

Right the Fuck Now belongs to the ADHDs. It's really the only concept of time we truly have. No reason not to fucking use it.

More Posts from Octiainyourpocket and Others

4 years ago

All you people without ADHD drink caffeine in the mornings? Weak ass, I take meth

5 years ago

Reblog if you're queer, have ADHD, or hate the government.

Nobody needs to know which one.

1 year ago

Today's Adventure is that I, after an unintentional 13-hour power nap,

Got woken up at 6AM by a phone call from a friend stranded in Montana because of the heat wave and almost no cell service because of their crap provider.

OhSoThat'sHowIt'sGonnaBe.jpg

Ok.

I somehow summon a week's worth of spoons and in less than 30 minutes and 5 phone calls, get them

A hotel

An appointment with a mechanic from 2 states away

A perscription refilled from 2 states away

and A Pizza

Go me.

But then it's 8AM and there are unscheduled live humans at the door and while EVERGENCY MODE is still on, I have already blown through a ton of spoons, and also probably shouldn't meet whoever it is wearing just a pair of bootyshorts that say "CRYPTID" in Gothic Font on my ass.

So I greet them in those shorts and a T-shirt that I manage to put on both inside out and backwards

#nailedit

It is, Fortunately, not the mormons.

it is, Unfortunately, two UPS guys trying to deliver my other in-house friend's new phone except the new guy doesn't know how to operate the "sign for package" device, and the old guy that's supposed to be mentoring him is like, 92, deaf as a post, and doesn't actually know how to operate the device either.

by the way

it is already

over 100 out

it takes almost 30 minutes to sign for the phone

when i get back inside, i discover that apparently the Corgi has learned how to open his kennel from the inside because he is now out of the kennel and waiting for me to come in.

he also has cat litter all over his face because while he was waiting for me he also learned how to open the baby gate to the cat's room and help himself to a cat shit breakfast.

He'll be fine

He's a cattle dog, they're legally required to have at least 1 really disgusting snack they love.

but

more to the point

i have no idea at what point he learned to open his kennel from the inside

has he been staying there out of politeness this whole time??

And

I got other shit to do today.

namely.

I'm seeing a realator

The Devils most pathetic yet effective demons

I get a reminder text that I have an appointment with her

at least

I think that's what it is because what she sends me is: "🏡⏰12:00 ❔"

With the time typed in the middle like that.

She is, according to her profile, at least 80.

so I reply "😎👍"

and then she sends me a string of GODDAMN POST-MODERN EMOJI HEIROGLYPHICS THAT TAKE UP MY ENTIRE SCREEN.

She's on an iPhone so half of them don't even translate across platforms

It takes me half an hour and three different software programs and goddamn wingdings to translate, but she has sent me the address and rules about masking and not wearing shoes inside.

in emoji

instead of like

literally any other format

I am

FASCINATED

and simply must meet the woman so if I don't come back to update I got stolen by the fairies but I'm taking the Corgi with me as protection so I'll see y'all later.

1 year ago

adhd will have you fighting for your life to do beloved hobbies that bring you nothing but joy

4 years ago
Me Irl

me irl

4 years ago

Some people forget that not liking something is not equal to being against it

tumblr still thinks you’re not allowed to dislike anything unless you have some ethical reason for it

1 year ago
Opinion | I’m a Climate Scientist. I’m Not Screaming Into the Void Anymore.
nytimes.com
Something has changed in the United States, and not just the climate.

No paywall version here.

"Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated...

In the end, I said yes, but reluctantly. Frankly, I was sick of admonishing people about how bad things could get. Scientists have raised the alarm over and over again, and still the temperature rises. Extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more severe and frequent, exactly as we predicted they would. We were proved right. It didn’t seem to matter.

Our report, which was released on Tuesday, contains more dire warnings. There are plenty of new reasons for despair. Thanks to recent scientific advances, we can now link climate change to specific extreme weather disasters, and we have a better understanding of how the feedback loops in the climate system can make warming even worse. We can also now more confidently forecast catastrophic outcomes if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.

But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too.

I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report. Human beings have put about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution — more than the weight of every living thing on Earth combined. But as we wrote the report, I learned other, even more mind-boggling numbers. In the last decade, the cost of wind energy has declined by 70 percent and solar has declined 90 percent. Renewables now make up 80 percent of new electricity generation capacity. Our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, even as our G.D.P. and population grow.

In the report, we were tasked with projecting future climate change. We showed what the United States would look like if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t a pretty picture: more heat waves, more uncomfortably hot nights, more downpours, more droughts. If greenhouse emissions continue to rise, we could reach that point in the next couple of decades. If they fall a little, maybe we can stave it off until the middle of the century. But our findings also offered a glimmer of hope: If emissions fall dramatically, as the report suggested they could, we may never reach 2 degrees Celsius at all.

For the first time in my career, I felt something strange: optimism.

And that simple realization was enough to convince me that releasing yet another climate report was worthwhile.

Something has changed in the United States, and not just the climate. State, local and tribal governments all around the country have begun to take action. Some politicians now actually campaign on climate change, instead of ignoring or lying about it. Congress passed federal climate legislation — something I’d long regarded as impossible — in 2022 as we turned in the first draft.

[Note: She's talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, which despite the names were the two biggest climate packages passed in US history. And their passage in mid 2022 was a big turning point: that's when, for the first time in decades, a lot of scientists started looking at the numbers - esp the ones that would come from the IRA's funding - and said "Wait, holy shit, we have an actual chance."]

And while the report stresses the urgency of limiting warming to prevent terrible risks, it has a new message, too: We can do this. We now know how to make the dramatic emissions cuts we’d need to limit warming, and it’s very possible to do this in a way that’s sustainable, healthy and fair.

The conversation has moved on, and the role of scientists has changed. We’re not just warning of danger anymore. We’re showing the way to safety.

I was wrong about those previous reports: They did matter, after all. While climate scientists were warning the world of disaster, a small army of scientists, engineers, policymakers and others were getting to work. These first responders have helped move us toward our climate goals. Our warnings did their job.

To limit global warming, we need many more people to get on board... We need to reach those who haven’t yet been moved by our warnings. I’m not talking about the fossil fuel industry here; nor do I particularly care about winning over the small but noisy group of committed climate deniers. But I believe we can reach the many people whose eyes glaze over when they hear yet another dire warning or see another report like the one we just published.

The reason is that now, we have a better story to tell. The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now.

Eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions will make our air and water cleaner, our economy stronger and our quality of life better. It could save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives across the country through air quality benefits alone. Using land more wisely can both limit climate change and protect biodiversity. Climate change most strongly affects communities that get a raw deal in our society: people with low incomes, people of color, children and the elderly. And climate action can be an opportunity to redress legacies of racism, neglect and injustice.

I could still tell you scary stories about a future ravaged by climate change, and they’d be true, at least on the trajectory we’re currently on. But it’s also true that we have a once-in-human-history chance not only to prevent the worst effects but also to make the world better right now. It would be a shame to squander this opportunity. So I don’t just want to talk about the problems anymore. I want to talk about the solutions. Consider this your last warning from me."

-via New York Times. Opinion essay by leading climate scientist Kate Marvel. November 18, 2023.

4 years ago
image

If you need Plan B, here’s a printable $10 off coupon. 

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octiainyourpocket - A deep-frozen pocket-worm
A deep-frozen pocket-worm

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