Sorry about reblogging this, but it’s important to share.
ADHD IS a disability and it affects every day life. I need accomodations and acceptance for it, because it’s a disorder that causes shit for me.
You are right. It might be a “label” but it’s a label that actively helps me cope with bad days. That helps me look towards the future for what I need. It’s not a gift, but it helps me recognize how to deal with it.
Is anyone else like this? As a kid and even in adulthood in workplaces, I have always needed to doodle in order to maintain focus on and retain important information. My notebook margins are always filled with fun patterns :)
having adhd and not knowing it from a young age is being yelled at by your parents because you remembered to do your homework that’s due tomorrow on the night before. it is often getting into trouble because you zoned out during a conversation or a teacher’s explanation but you don’t even know how you did it, you don’t control it. it is knowing deep down that you’re different from other kids but not knowing why. and then, being treated different by your peers and by the adults around you and again not knowing why. it is suffering in silence because everybody, in a way or another, punishes you for being the way you are even if you don’t even know what that means.
but then… you finally understand it. you finally put all the pieces together and for the first time in your life, everything you’ve lived until that moment finally makes sense. the reasons behind the things you did and still do are finally explained to you and you don’t feel like an outsider anymore. and tbh? it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.
Edit: I made the assumption that as I left the original posters name on the photo and the fact it is a photo people could deduce that it was not my own.
I found this image on Pinterest and thought it would be helpful, I attempted to find the original to reblog but the name @ceebycee does not come up when I search it and I was unable to find the original.
I do not claim this is my post and I am not trying to steal someone else’s just thought that it could be helpful.
I’m sorry if I have caused any issues or offend anyone in sharing this information.
UGH there is NOTHING more frustrating than trying to research ADHD, it’s all “do you interrupt people a lot? do you find it hard to sit still?” and “boys are twice as likely to have ADHD than girls” and “here’s how to deal with your ADHD child” and there’s nothing about adults, nothing about underdiagnosis in women, nothing about RSD, dyscalculia, sensory processing, emotional regulation
i am not a little boy pretending to be an airplane in the back of the classroom. I was never allowed to be, because I was a little girl. i was a little girl who couldn’t sit still but i had to because ladies sit still while the boys shout and fidget in the background. i was a little girl who got left behind when recess ended because i was so engrossed in my small rock garden i didn’t hear the bell; i was a little girl who grew up smart enough to take precalculus, but couldn’t for the life of me remember my times tables; i was a little girl who got so angry and didn’t know how to stop it (“you can control your emotions!” my dad told me; “don’t bottle it up,” my mom said; “scream into a pillow, write it down, take deep breaths” everyone told me, and none of it helped); i was a little girl who lay awake every night terrified i’d forgotten to do something due tomorrow; i was a little girl who couldn’t make friends because socializing was hell because if i made one wrong move, received one negative response, i might as well have set myself on fire; i was a little girl who took pride in being the Weird Girl, because i had to; i was a little girl with adhd
and now i’m an adult woman with adhd, and i know that because of people on tumblr, not because of the DSM-V. The DSM-V and the CDC tell me little boys have ADHD, not little girls. they tell me if i don’t interrupt people (don’t interrupt people, that’s rude, being rude means hurt hurt hurt because of RSD and nice young ladies aren’t rude anyway) and finish assigned tasks (don’t forget don’t forget don’t forget if you forget they’ll hate you) i don’t have the inattentive component; and they tell me if i can sit still (what kind of organs do snails have, anyway? let’s research that for four hours) and avoid butting into people’s space (don’t be rude, don’t be RUDE) i don’t have the hyperactive component; and they only ever mean to talk to parents of little ADHD boys, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing meant for me.
Wow. I relate to this so much and the thought of it possibly being ADHD never even crossed my mind.
Just from my personal experience, I’ve found it much easier to get a diagnosis and be treated for mine. More and more health professionals are recognizing ADHD in AFAB (assigned female assign birth) people and adults. I’d highly recommend seeing a mental health professional to get assessed if you think it’s impacting your daily life in massively negative ways; getting help can be a life saver.
They also don’t talk about how girls with ADHD are much more likely to develop anxiety or how girls tend to fixate on hyper control to prevent “unladylike” behavior.
It took until college for me to get a definitive diagnosis of ADHD, and even then I second guess it. I can focus on video games for 18+ hours, with no breaks, not even for food. That’s not inattentive! Doesn’t matter if I can only focus on a few very specific games or that what’s really happening is hyper fixation. I can focus therefore no ADHD. My classmates comment on how surprised they are that I didn’t make a lot of noise in class from fidgeting? Everyone fidgets, still not ADHD. Literally feel like my brain is being crushed in a voice whenever I try to study or work? I just don’t have the discipline to get my work done, not ADHD. Want to start crying cause you can’t focus and what your learning/working on just does not make sense? Suck it up, still not ADHD.
“Everyone experiences those things”
Actually, no, they don’t. I’m not hyper fixating because I’m obsessed or addicted to something. My brain just decided THAT’S SOMETHING WE CAN FOCUS ON. Normal people don’t fail to get any work done for weeks or months at a time because it physically hurts your brain and things just WONT WORK. Normal people can get comfortable when sitting.
I was tested for ADHD as a little girl but it was decided I didn’t have it, so I learned to sit still. I learned not to talk in school. I didn’t fidget and I didn’t speak unless spoken to. I hyper fixated on reading and expanding my vocabulary in third grade I was reading books at an 8th grade level because of this, but I didn’t have ADHD, I was just smart. I could not, for the life of me, figure out what the weird language of math was. it was a foreign language I couldn’t understand. but that was just me not trying hard enough. when I drove myself to tears trying to figure out one problem and being unable to move on to the next until k got this one right it wasn’t ADHD, it was me being childish and procrastinating my work. me not turning in half done work because it wasn’t finished so I couldn’t because it wasn’t done and it needed to be done to get turned in, was me being irresponsible and not caring about my grades when I cared so much it stressed me out in the fourth grade.
I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was seventeen years old. I was almost done with school by then. but that didn’t matter. we got me on meds, but they made me so sick I couldn’t eat anything and I was almost a zombie, no emotions to even struggle to regulate. (which when I had issues with that I was just “over emotional” and “a crybaby”) so we got me on new meds, and I think they worked. I couldn’t tell. I didn’t feel any different. I still hyper fixated on english and reading only now it’s fantasy and fiction because the world I see is too bleak and rattled with horrible things that my mind of anxiety, depression, and ADHD can barely handle.
now I’m twenty and off all medication and not being out back on because “it’s all in your head”. I’m twenty and just learning that the sinking feeling and tightness in my chest when I even THINK I’ve made someone close to my heart remotely upset is something that comes with ADHD that I wasn’t told about.
nobody tells you how much it actually sucks to deal with ADHD, and how its different for literally every single person with it. because while I may suffer from auditory processing (“huh?” “oh wait, *answers question/continues conversation in the middle of the person repeating*”/ “wait what? my brain said no to that-”), someone else may not, they may be able to process things perfectly but have some other issue with I don’t have.
WOW. I got my diagnosis a few months ago at age 32 and it seriously just boggles my mind. This entire post is so necessary. A diagnosis of ADD/ADHD as a late teen/early adult is just wild. You’ve lived your whole life feeling a certain way and then you get told you have ADD/ADHD. If I hadn’t worked up the courage and actually talked to my Doctor about my eating behavior and how it was making me feel, I wouldn’t have even known.
Doc decided to test me after 6 months when we talked about side effects of the med he had me on (Vyvanse) and there weren’t any negative. The positives prompted the test.
People don’t realize you don’t need to be hyperactive to to have attention deficit disorder.
This is an opinion I’ve, tbf, been afraid of expressing on here. it’s exactly what I think of adhd. And I know everyone who has adhd has at some point, shared this opinion too. Because it IS exhausting. It’s IS limiting. And it makes life 100% more overwhelming than it already is.
It’s so easy to get lost in the sea of positivity about adhd. About how it makes you unique and different and helps you think outside the box. But that isn’t adhd exclusive.
The “creativity” that comes with adhd is almost always drowned out by the work of dealing with impulses, the dread of poor executive functioning the glaring time blindness and the inability to direct my focus where I want to, when I want to. All of that supposed creativity, ultimately, ends up being used to just get through the day.
Barely scraping by, every single time. Rushing to finish work, every single time. Starting off strong, and half assing it anyway, every single time. It’s a cycle that gets repetitive, and exhausting and destructive pretty fucking fast. Everything I’ve ever accomplished is by overriding the adhd force that is bent on knocking me down over and over again and ik that everyone with adhd faces the exact struggle.
So no, adhd hasn’t helped me in any way whatsoever, but it has hurt me very very significantly. I get that all the positive, relatable posts are supposed to make you feel less alone but if I could choose to not have adhd, then I would in a heartbeat. It IS a disorder, and it does hold me back and I’m tired of acting like it’s a quirky little treat
Phone addiction has been a bit of a struggle for me, but I’ve been consciously working on it. It’s tough when your whole social life, hobbies and method of getting things done involves your phone.
This is actually based on an earlier comic I did about a task I’d normally do easily, suddenly being much harder, but I really wanted to focus on the emotional aspect of it.
This happens a lot to me and it can be hard sometimes to recognize it is part of a cycle my brain will go through. My ADHD can have a huge impact on anxiety, so when my ADHD isn’t under control, my anxiety is allowed to go haywire.
I’ll get so self defeated and suddenly the next time I try the task, I don’t struggle as much and it can be very confusing to me.
I struggle to maintain focus while watching videos, especially longer ones, but I’ve found a combination of increased playback speed/captions to help me substantially!
I’m really bad about getting off topic when discussing something or after being asked a question. It’s not as though I change the topic completely at a whim, but rather whatever is being talked about relates to something else and my ADHD sends me down a rabbit hole. I’m really bad about getting off topic when discussing something or after being asked a question. It’s not as though I change the topic completely at a whim, but rather whatever is being talked about relates to something else and my ADHD sends me down a rabbit hole
Happy New Years! 2020 may have been a hard year, but it was a big year for me in terms of being diagnosed and finding the wonderful ADHD community. I felt so lost after my initial diagnosis, but I was so lucky to find people who understand and have been such great supports.
Thank you all for being a part of this and for sharing your experiences, cheering me on, and being a part of this community.
This is a very personal comic, even though it’s not very long and doesn’t have many details. There were many opportunities in my life where my ADHD should have been caught, but I felt like I had been failed several times by the same professionals I had sought help from. It all boiled down to the fact they thought they knew me better than I knew me and therefore what I had to say was not deemed important enough to listen to.
It wasn’t until I started seeing my current therapist that I was actually allowed to speak for myself. At first it seemed to only confirm my Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but the more I talked, the more she began to realize that there was something else going on. One day she politely asked me to stop for a moment and point blank asked me “Bri, have you ever heard of Inattentive ADHD?” I had not.
My contribution to the holiday collaboration done by myself, @schnumn, Dreamadoodles (instagram), and Comics_by_kelo (Instagram). Dreamadoodles will be posting theirs next!
of course i found my favourite black shirt that has been missing for 2 months under my desk just camouflaging into the background. i looked everywhere for that stupid thing. and it was right there.
