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Me sitting on the couch listening to my clock and making it go from “tick tock tick tock” to “tock tick tock tick” back and forth in my head for 27 minutes straight.
Ouch, this one is too real!
The distractions are all on the inside of my brain going weeeeeee… so should i just remove my brain?
Complete removal seems extreme. Maybe just disconnect some of it, as a treat.
If I don’t have something to distract me I can’t concentrate
I work best with music/podcasts/streaming all simultaneously blasting. Then I can concentrate.
My wife finds it BAFFLING that I can listen to a TV show with audio description on, or an audiobook, or a podcast, while playing a video game, and be happy as a clam.
My brother gets annoyed by me having like 2-3 audio sources at a time on my computer when I try to have a conversation with him or have him take a look at one of the things producing audio and makes me mute the rest.
It slightly annoys me when he uses headphones because I want the extra background noise. But I realize that’s an absurd thing be annoyed about and keep it to myself normally.
Yesterday, my cousin, whose computer is right next to my room was playing music loudly and when he found out I was taking a nap asked if he needed to turn it and down and I said something that sounded like it could be passive aggressive and then had to say something like “I’m not being passive aggressive. I actually like that noise while trying to sleep. Like people like fans for white noise”.
One of the best things I accidentally did for myself was put a 3D printer in my office. It’s a fantastic level of noise and distraction. I could watch that nozzle laying down plastic for hours, and my brain shower-thoughts its way to problem solving while I do. I love it.
Yep, the goal is to find the correct balance of the correct types of distractions.
Too much or the wrong ones and you veer off course and never make it back to the main task, too much the other way and the main task feels like too much to start.
This is different for everyone which makes it all the more fun. It’s a life skill people with adhd need to learn all on their own and other than telling rach other a path exists, we cannot actually guide each other from our own experience.
And the sometimes what works shifts around or stops working all together as circumstances or surroundings change.
Yes. I hate myself.
My fingers are fucking fascinating. As are my toes. Not to mention all the bullshit going on in my head.
“Write stuff down and put it where you’ll see it!”
— proceeds to completely see through the stuff you wrote down because it is now blends into the background scenery —
Yup. Getting tired of people saying “just write notes and reminders!”
Okay, my brain immediately deleted the memory of the reminder once it popped up, now what.
I carry a notebook around for this and that works pretty well. If I need to do something I write it in there first and that way even if I get sidetracked it’s there. It also helps prevent getting sidetracked because I can put whatever is sidetracking me on the list instead.
I’m happy to hear you found something that works. I tried this before and just like every other thing, I forgot about the notebook after a week of it kinda helping. More of a me problem here, though.
Alternative: about six years ago I was struck with an idea for a new campaign setting after watching a video about orbital resonance in tightly-packed planetary systems. I was about to get into the shower at the time, but I completely forgot about that for the next three hours as i started scribbling equations on the walls with soap and on the steamed-up mirrors with my fingers. That was the moment that made me realize I actually needed medication
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it.
Yeah, this is why I have a physical calendar with stickers that I can place for tasks (they are called family calendars and have extra space to place pictograms and notes on each day of the months) and an app that notifies me of tasks to do at the same time (for any ADHD havers here, the app is called Habitica, it’s the best app I’ve found for ADHD, try it out; it really helps).
If I blend one out completely that day, the other reminds me non-stop on my phone (post-its were not helping at all on their own and weren’t precise enough compared to a family calendar). It helps with getting more tasks done than if I didn’t use those tools at all (I am medicated, but I still struggle with not doing tasks when my motivation is very low, you all know how it is).
Would you look at that, I have hands.
I remember back when I was in school and staring at my hands seemed infinitely more important than homework. Also watching shadows change as the sun moved across the sky.
Thinking about really makes me appreciate Adderall.
You had a WINDOW?! Lucky. I got a windowless room in school all by myself to do my homework in, as my reward for even having an IEP (that was never followed)
“y’know, they call 'em fingers, but I never see them ‘fing.’ Oh, wait, there they go.”
I always tell people “I need something to ignore”
And it’s mostly true…I need background sound. And not just white noise - I need something with meaning
Put me in nature, and I’m fine. Bird tweets, rustling of the leaves - I’m at peace. I’ll hear even a squirrel hundreds of yards away, but I know what’s going on. I just need to know what’s going on around me in a way that makes sense. The creaking of the building, distant cars, muffled footsteps… Just the unnatural silence
That’s what freaks me out
Can ADHD be almost the right way to handle undesired work?
If one doesn’t want to do work, it’s straight forward to not do it. If that isn’t allowed then doing everything else is the closest thing to avoiding that work. In that sense, ADHD is either a way of avoiding to be broken or the inability to integrate work into one’s accepted goals.
How could it be possible to accept work that one doesn’t want to do?
I think there’s still a problem in that you need to do some things that are undesired in order to maintain yourself - Household chores, for example. Some things are non negotiable, and for those you need to be able to force yourself, as unpleasant as it is.
In modern society you either work or starve. There’s no adventurous alternative as would have been available before modernity.
It’s mind boggling how different the modern concept of work is from how it was for 99.9% of human existence.
I’m sure the hyper-optimization, hyper-specialization, the alienation, and the constant flux of modern work contributes greatly to the problems we are experiencing.
Even when there was no “adventurous alternative”, work was a lot more grounded in society and had a lot more downtime at pretty much any point in history.
This is from David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years. It’s an anecdote his grad school advisor told him about a Samoan lying around on the beach.
MISSIONARY: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that.
SAMOAN: Why? What do you think I should be doing?
MISSIONARY: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it?
SAMOAN: And why would I want to do that?
MISSIONARY: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine, and dry copra faster, and make even more money.
SAMOAN: Okay. And why would I want to do that?
MISSIONARY: Well, you’d be rich. You could buy land, plant more trees, expand operations. At that point, you wouldn’t even have to do the physical work anymore, you could just hire a bunch of other people to do it for you.
SAMOAN: Okay. And why would I want to do that?
MISSIONARY: Well, eventually, with all that copra, land, machines, employees, with all that money—you could retire a very rich man. And then you wouldn’t have to do anything. You could just lie on the beach all day.
Are you sure it’s not just depression?
There is probably also depression in there. It is pretty easy to get depressed when you have ADHD.
but ADHD is such a gift how could we ever end up depressed??!?
I’ve seen this mentality way too much on Reddit subs. Often by the same people that say they are just “neurospicy” and that ADHD is quirky and makes up their entire identity. God that shit is cringe.
Even saw someone recently ask people if they would cure their ADHD if scientists came up with a cure. 90% of the responses were by sane people saying, “WTF question is that? Yes, I would cure it, it’s a disability!” and the op was just replying to them that ADHD was the reason they were creative and was their identity… Bro… Sometimes, I feel like some of these people aren’t even real.
I mean many “sane” people, myself included, wouldn’t “cure” their disabilities because it is part of who they are. I’d rather society cure itself of its ableism than me have to change who and what I am. I have more issues than just my ADHD though, and “curing” all that would fundamentally make me a completely different human being. To each their own though.
The definition is that it is disturbing normal life. If your life is not disturbed, you don’t have it. If it’s disturbing your life, removing it will make you more you. Not less. You aren’t nothing. Stop clinging to ideas as your identity
Disabilities can be managed to the point they cause minimal disturbance to your life, thanks to modern medicine and technology alongside accessibility legislation. As well, what I have had to struggle with has made me a more compassionate person towards other people’s struggles. That’s not an idea, that’s a fact. You aren’t going to convince me to love myself any less.
I want you to know that this is the most disturbing ad hominem I have ever experienced. Hope you can get help with your victimisation complex and survive, it sounds hellish to live like that.
What a strange and messed up thing to say! You have no idea what my life is like, so please don’t dare to comment on it. ✌️
I disagree with that way of thinking, it really isn’t sane to me. ADHD isn’t “part of who I am”, just like my myopia isn’t either. It’s not part of my personality, it’s just a disability I inherited. I can cure my myopia with laser eye surgery and when I get enough money to, I absolutely will and if there’s a cure for ADHD, I absolutely will cure it the same way I will my myopia. Disabilities aren’t my personality. Curing them won’t change who I am as a person (my brother and mother got laser eye surgery for their severe myopia… their personalities didn’t change, btw). That way of thinking is so damn reductive to me.
You’re welcome to believe what you want to, and I didn’t try to convince you that you shouldn’t. Personally, I believe I am the sum of both my positive life experiences and successes, as well as the challenges, pain and trauma, for better or worse. Now, if they came up with a cure tomorrow for my connective tissue disorder, would I take it? You’re damn right I would. But given the choice of “pressing the button” and being born without it, I absolutely would not, because to do so would mean that I will have never existed. It’s the same reason I, as a trans woman, don’t wish I was born a cis girl. These things have inextricably made me who I am, I wouldn’t just be a “different” person without them, but entirely unrecognisable.
I deeply disagree with you as a transman myself. My core never changed after transition… I was still me regardless of how people saw me before, during and after (took 15 years). I was just getting treatment (a cure of sorts). My medical conditions (or disabilities) don’t define my personality or who I am as a person. That’s absolute nonsense.
You aren’t going to change my mind, and honestly this is becoming insulting, so I’m going to take my leave. I hope you have a good day, evening or night wherever you may be!
To be fair, if you’ve been diagnosed as an adult, ADHD is a huge part of who you are. You’ve lived with it your entire life and you’ve developed coping mechanisms accordingly.
But I get what you’re saying!
If you can make it so I never had it, I’m in. No idea what that would mean for me, how I’d suddenly be a different person, but if it means I get to not have all the bullshit memories from my childhood and instead have had a nOrMaL life, yes please.
Just “curing” it, as in, I don’t have it anymore starting now, wouldn’t do me any good.
I was diagnosed at 24, it’s just a disability. It’s not part of who I am at my core. Developing coping mechanisms to deal with the disability isn’t part of me, it’s necessity.
Diagnosed 39. Absolutely like I would not want to remove my coping mechanisms and be free??? Wtf
I was recently diagnosed (at 42). Up until then I had no clue what was wrong with me. If I could travel back in time and get treatment in my early years, I would definitely do it. But as it is, it has become part of my character, whether I like it or not. I’m not romanticizing it in any way, just putting it the way it is.
You don’t understand what it is and has made it your character instead of being yourself. It is not part of your character to have problems that disturb your daily life. A diagnosis comes when it is disturbing you. If you’re over it, you should not have a diagnosis.
No, but everything that happened around this illness did have an impact on my life. Learning to live with it (unknowingly), all the difficulties I have faced and somewhat overcome did build a certain character. Character isn’t something you’re born with. It’s how you interact with your surroundings that builds your character. Whether I like it or not. 40 years of this shit has an impact on how you do things, the friends you make, everything. Claiming that this hasn’t formed my character would be a lie. I’m definitely not over it. I got diagnosed because work became too difficult to handle and I sought help, believing it was a depression or a burnout. I never knew it was ADHD (and depressions from the shit i had to go through in my childhood) up until very recently. I’m now getting treated and it is an absolute godsend. And that’s just therapy. Meds are coming soon. Still have to go through some medical hurdles first but I’m very eager to find out how meds will have an impact. Looking back at what I could have achieved without this illness really brings me to tears at times.
So again, if I could travel back in time and were able to eliminate this illness from the beginning, I wouldn’t hesitate a bit. It might have made me a different person than I am now, but I’m very sure life would have been easier.
throws you down a cliff like a sack of potatoes
It’s simple: remove the wall as well.
/s
Has anyone tried removing the CEO? Say a nice deserted island with nothing to distract them.
When our house is filthy I tell my wife to gtfo and I overcaffinate and just “stream of consciousness” that bitch. I will hyperactively flit from room to room taking care of a small percentage of one of the hundreds of little jobs that compromise cleaning the house. The moment I get bored or the shits about one task I just wander off and find another to chip away at. Give me 6 hours and its a new house.
Drives my OCD wife utterly mad, because it takes her 6 hours to find the right size containers for the linen press, drive to 3 shops to get enough, then decide on a font for the labels she is going to make on her cricut, print the labels and get them on the tubs and I get home to the hallway full of linen and what I’m sure one day will be a perfectly organised linen press.
I thought removing distractions would help too. But even with no distractions, attending a meeting feels like I’m listening to a radio while driving between states.
Yeah. I’m my own distraction.
I have to, I mean HAVE to, get paperwork done today.
So far today I have mowed/weed wacked the yard, weeded and watered my garden, pulled meat from the freezer to defrost and planned dinner for tonight, and took one phone call in regards to said paperwork. They called me, of course.
I’m now on break and it’s nearly noon. This paperwork is over my head and I am overwhelmed. I could start on other chores just to avoid it, instead I uh, am taking break. I have to get this done, and I am annoyed as to why I have to do it at all… I might just pull it out to look at it. That’s step one no?
I also get so insanely productive when I have something else to do. You’re on the right track. You do the minimum possible step towards what you want to do even how small it is just find something small enough that you can manage.
Paperwork and accounting are the absolute worst. Like, it feels like it was specifically designed to be torture.
Yes definitely pull it out. Celebrate any progress in the right direction. Write down one word. Fill out one tiny section. Now positively reinforce it - that section was easy, nice. If that’s what you get done today then so be it. The next section will be easier.
Got 7000 words done, fuck yeahhhhh Dinner was never made, but got a large chunk of it done! You folks are so supportive! Thank you! Warms my heart
Hey, checking in. I know what this paralysis feels like. I do encourage you to JUST take it out. Maybe skim it if you can. Nothing else, then take another little break for a time. You got this <3
You took a phone call? You overachiever, you
