ADHD Advice

I'm the one friend in my group who actually got an official diagnosis as a kid. If you think you might have ADHD but aren't sure, or if you recently got diagnosed and want reassurance, I am here to chat!! When I write, I will be BREAKING UP the text with FORMATTED WORDS to make it easier to read LARGE BLOCKS of text. If this makes it harder for you to read, LET ME KNOW. I can send you a different version. Peri, 22, hearing, any pronouns. Main blog: soaringsearingphoenix

[adhd-adept]

I made an ADHD blog

Hello everyone! It's Peri. I haven't run an advice blog before, but I do have things to say about how I manage my ADHD so I thought I'd try, if it may be helpful for some!

I know a lot of people, on here or offline, who think they have ADHD but aren't sure how to tell for themselves, or how to get a diagnosis, or if they're allowed to use ADHD resources.

Well, I do have a diagnosis and I'm here to tell you; you are welcome here. ADHD is not an exclusive community. If you think you maybe have ADHD, this is meant to be a resource for you, along with people who do have an official diagnosis. Besides, it's comorbid with a whole bunch of other things, so there's a solid chance that some of the behavioral advice for things like ADHD's brand of executive dysfunction will also overlap with things like anxiety or depression, which can make your daily routine more challenging in their own right.

Obviously my advice should NOT be a substitute for a doctor's. I sometimes joke that having ADHD for 7+ years means i basically have a PhD, but I have not been to medical school and I have no authority to advise you in an official capacity. I still highly recommend seeking a professional diagnosis and professional help if your ADHD is impacting your daily life. You may find some use in the behavioral advice, but NEVER medicate for ADHD without a doctor's prescription.

Anyways, it may take me some time to figure out how to make this blog something actually useful to people, but for now, if you have any questions feel free to ask!

[etherealspacejelly]

this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it

buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell

leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist

put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.

when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!

plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.

if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge

if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.

its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.

[ray-toro-enthusiast67]

THIS ^^^

But also for any other neurodivergencies!

I especially felt the canned/frozen veggies. I enjoy cooking but don’t always have the motivation to do it. Because of this I started to buy jars of pre-minced garlic (which also helps my sensitivity to strong smells that are especially on my hands/fingers).

When I could I’d make larger batches of meals to eat another day.

It’s hard to get through a day sometimes so do what you can to lighten up the load

[reasonsforhope]

By the way, you can improve your executive function. You can literally build it like a muscle.

Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. I don't have ADHD, but it is allegedly a thing with ADHD as well. And I am autistic, and after a bunch of nerve damage (severe enough that I was basically housebound for 6 months), I had to completely rebuild my ability to get my brain to Do Things from what felt like nearly scratch.

This is specifically from ADDitude magazine, so written specifically for ADHD (and while focused in large part on kids, also definitely includes adults and adult activities):

How to Sharpen Executive Functions: Activities to Hone Brain Skills

Executive functioning skills range from working memory to cognitive flexibility to inhibitory control, and beyond. They power our daily func

Here's a link on this for autism (though as an editor wow did that title need an editor lol):

Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults with Autism

Practical Strategies for Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults With Autism - Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as

Resources on this aren't great because they're mainly aimed at neurotypical therapists or parents of neurdivergent children. There's worksheets you can do that help a lot too or thought work you can do to sort of build the neuro-infrastructure for tasks.

But a lot of the stuff is just like. fun. Pulling from both the first article and my own experience:

Play games or video games where you have to make a lot of decisions. Literally go make a ton of picrews or do online dress-up dolls if you like. It helped me.

Art, especially forms of art that require patience, planning ahead, or in contrast improvisation

Listening to longform storytelling without visuals, e.g. just listening regularly to audiobooks or narrative podcasts, etc.

Meditation

Martial arts

Sports in general

Board games like chess or Catan (I actually found a big list of what board games are good for building what executive functioning skills here)

Woodworking

Cooking

If you're bad at time management play games or video games with a bunch of timers

Things can be easier. You do not have to be stuck forever.

[guerrillatech]

[brehaaorgana]

From the book Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD:

Putting a coat on the back of a chair by the door is fine, but if you prefer, use coat hooks and a large catch-all basket for dropping keys, hats, gloves.

Small bookcase end-table next to the couch to store craft projects, books, and other things being worked on for easy access.

Add a storage unit near the dining room table to transition between eating and working there.

Daily toiletry items should be stored in a basket that you can move easily

Extra toiletries and medicine cabinet items go in open shelf/basket storage so they can be seen and used easily. If items no longer fit, purge the excess. Don’t obscure the view!

If you disrobe in the bathroom, place a tall hamper in there.

Keep a set of cleaning supplies in each bathroom

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

Reblog and say what project you currently have spread on your dinner table in the tags

[pancakeke]

oh btw archive.org has the first edition of this book available to borrow.

[1dietcokeinacan]

“3 Defining Features of ADHD That Everyone Overlooks”

[opinatus-papaver]

FINALLY, SOME GOOD QUALITY EXPLANATION OF WHY “I DONT LOOK LIKE I HAVE ADHD” BECAUSE ITS NOT REALLY CANT SIT STILL FOCUS NONE DISORDER ITS SOMETHING A WHOLE LOT MORE COMPLEX

[dysfunctionalfocus]

Actually yeah. I just reblogged this silently without any acknowledgement of it, but this is hones to god one of the best explanations I’ve seen.

[ms-demeanor]

I don't know who needs to hear this but you've probably got vegetables in your fridge that are starting to go a little off so you should probably plan on making a frittata or a pot of soup in the next couple days.

[ms-demeanor]

I don't know who needs to hear this but almost every bit of fresh produce you've got that might be about to go off can likely be safely frozen for use later if you want to keep it, and that the amount of waste generated by consumers is a tiny portion of food waste generally and you're not a bad or wasteful person if you forgot your veggies or you weren't feeling well enough to cook.

[ms-demeanor]

This post is almost a year old and my favorite thing about it is that it is still circulating and periodically someone will tag it #MY PARSNIPS or some other forgotten vegetable and I get a tiny little snapshot of harried people living their lives and making dinner.

[hellenhighwater]

Where do you keep your clothes, if not in your bedroom?

In my laundry room! There's a small maid's bedroom right off the kitchen, which some previous homeowner decided to convert to house the washer/dryer and a small pantry. I hung up a couple clothing rods in there and that's where my clothes live. I usually use it as a changing room also.

Honestly, I never want to keep my clothes anywhere but in the laundry room again. The number of steps eliminated in the clothes cleaning/storage process makes my ADHD brain SO much more willing to engage in those tasks. It's so easy to do laundry if taking clothes out of the dryer means that you hang them directly in the correct location.

At some point I'm going to be adding built-ins into that room to make the storage in there more optimized, but that's kind of dependent on me and my miter saw finishing a bunch of other stuff first. I'll get there eventually.

[hellenhighwater]

For all fellow ADHD enjoyers out there, this is pretty much my number one coping method for the way executive dysfunction tends to wreak merry havoc with my housekeeping: figure out what step of the cleaning process is tripping me up the most, and then eliminate that step.

I hate hauling my stick vacuum up and down the stairs, so there's an upstairs vacuum and a downstairs vacuum now. I clean the bathrooms almost entirely on impulse, so a complete set of bathroom-cleaning materials is stored in each bathroom. Some weeks I just cannot make myself wash dishes, so there's a stash of paper plates so I can eat without growing mold in my kitchen. There's a dozen little ways I keep my house that might not be the 'traditional' way to do things but that make me able to actually keep my house functional and clean. And that's the only metric that matters.

[airagorncharda]

my most recent strategy for dealing with executive dysfunction is that when I catch myself lying in bed thinking “I want to be doing the productive thing, but for some reason I’m still just lying here, wtf is wrong with me” I start mentally screaming until I get up. 

I don’t mean screaming AT myself, I just mean screaming. Like, a battle cry, or a tantruming baby. The goal is to fill up my brain with “AAAAAAAAAAA” until I am vertical. I can’t articulate WHY it works, but so far it’s working for me!

[airagorncharda]

Oh, Correct

[nebuvoid]

[windvexer]

who has a spell to make your brain switch tasks

[stsathyre]

Take the shiniest quarter you have. Throw it at the farthest wall and yell internally or externally "NEXT!"

[windvexer]

can't believe this worked

[paracausalwraith]

[paracausalwraith]

well this is by far my most popular post. Glad i've helped remind people to take their meds!

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

pick one and do it

take meds

drink water

touch grass

human interaction

make snack

take shower

brush teeth

go to sleep

log off tumblr.com

unclench your jaw

Voting ended onFeb 10, 2023

[memorycycle]

adhd tip you can replace a “meal” with up to 3 hours of “the app” but watch out

[slimegirlwarlock]

okay done 👍 why am i hurts

[hollywolly3000]

Because of this post whenever I notice I’m mindlessly scrollling through social media instead of important things like eating I think the words “The App” repeatedly untill I close it

[thatadhdmood]

How to reach goals as a neurodivergent person by not creating them from a neurotypical standpoint

Make the tasks fun & engaging

[medli20]

Had a realization about myself recently, and I think I might need to go get myself evaluated whoops

[razzleberryjam]

Adhd symptoms no one talks about:

I cant finish cleaning my room because I can’t organize my desk because I haven’t organized my vanity because I cant organize my vanity because I haven’t organized my closet drawers because I cant organize my closet drawers until I organize my nightstand and I cant do that until I GET A NIGHTSTAND because the space between my really heavy bookshelf full of books and the space between my bed is abnormally narrow BUT TONIGHT WHILE I WAS AT ROSS I found the perfect nightstand so now I can go home and put all the stuff thats supposed to go on and under my nightstand on and under my nightstand and then I can organize the space next to my bed, then I can organize the closet drawers, then im at another impasse because I still need the proper vanity organizational materials; but we have made some achievements tonight boys

[cameoappearance]

It’s like every problem is this

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

Thinkin about how as kids parents told us to clean our rooms without having ever shown us how to themselves, taught us any organizational skills, spatial management, or any other knowledge necessary to know how to efficiently tackle a mess without getting overwhelmed and then got exasperated when we as ten year olds didn’t just……figure it out

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

This is not a dunk on my parents for the record. I had wonderful parents growing up and still have an amazing mom. I think this is just one of those smaller and common things of parenthood that I think addressing would be monumental in reducing a very common household stressor. If parents led their children in cleanups and helped them reason out plans to manage their time and stuff, especially neurodivergent kids, the entire household would be a lot more calm, streamlined, and overall happy I think!!!

[tractorgoth]

I’ve got one 7 year old perfectionist (possible ADHD) and one sweet 5 year old hurricane (DEFINITE ADHD) and me (also brain full of cats, despises prolonged supervisory things). Here’s some things I’ve learned specific to that that are also generally good for teaching kids to clean. (Or yourself.)

1. If you want a kid to clean, first you have to teach them to even see mess. They don’t! But it does stress them out.

“Okay, let’s look for something out of its place. If it’s on the floor, it’s out of place. If it’s on your bed and it’s not a blanket, it’s out of place.”

2. Go by category, it’s easier to find stuff to put away if your search engine has a specific target, and it’s more satisfying and efficient to put away a big chunk of mess at once.

“Got something? Ok, are there other things like it? Let’s find all the BOOKS. I will HELP YOU.”

3. Important!! Don’t walk away from a kid with focus issues expecting them to instantly learn a task and finish it! You are setting them up to fail! The first several times you need to be there for the whole process and demonstrate by helping. That motivates them. They feel less panic that you’ll bail and they’ll be stuck alone not knowing what to do next. Narrate what you’re doing, too. Help and supervise less as they seem to need you less.

“I’ll get the books on the floor, can you help me get the ones under your bed? I can’t fit!”

4. In my experience most kids, but especially kids with ADHD would walk to the fucking moon to help you, they just need a clear plan, keep the criticism light, short, and to the point, and ffs PRAISE THEM when they do things right, cause we’ve all (I hope) seen the statistics on how much more negative interaction they get compared to other kids (and rejection sensitive dysphoria is a motherfucker). But more than praise you need to show them how what they did was good for THEM. Do nooooooooot take this opportunity for an ‘I told you so’ or a ‘finally’ or you will suck out all their accomplishment.

“Hey, great job, you found that horse you were missing because you cleaned! And your room looks so nice! It’s really comfortable to play in now, and you did that.”

5. Emphasize it does not have to be perfect or complete to be worth doing. I don’t want to will my kids my paralysis of inaction because I can’t start part of something unless I can do all of it.

“We don’t have time to do the whole room, but let’s pick up the legos before bed so you don’t hurt your feet. And then it’ll already be done tomorrow!”

Other small but important things: make sure everyone is fed and not cranky when you start, including you. Do what YOU need to be in the right patient headspace for this. Put on music. Get coffee. Take breaks! Take dance breaks, tickle breaks, whatever. Make em short, set a timer, keep it consistent. Stop completely if they’re getting overwhelmed or stressed and be prepared to finish another day. They may complain and flop around a lot the first few times. Stay tooth grindingly positive and keep at it, it WILL get better. If you mess up, start again. It’s ok. It’s never too late.

[mylove-isnot-fragile]

I’m an adult with ADHD who finds cleaning their room a STRUGGLE, so I APPRECIATE THE HELL OUT OF THIS

[shyocean]

Why are we never taught?

Why are we expected to just know?

And, for God’s own sake, why were we never exposed to the idea that being good at something often happens After being bad at something and doing it imperfectly anyway?

Seriously.