NEURODIVERGENT COPING SKILLS/HACKS

I have ADHD and I scored as mostly inattentive | I do not have experience with every mental disorder or illness, however, because there is so much overlap of symptoms, this blog is for anyone neurodivergent to try some coping skills I have built and see if they work for you | This is a safe space for minorities and women; be respectful or face my block button | If you have suggestions on how to tag what, I am all ears 😅

[skullchicken]

If you have achieved something, please remember to observe a mandatory period of basking in the warm glow of your achievement like a lizard on a stone, lest you teach your brain that effort is futile, actually, because it didn't get to enjoy its happy chemicals, so, naturally, nothing good ever comes of trying. (And no, avoiding punishment is not a reward!)

I recommend, like, 5% of basking time in relation to whatever time you invested into achieving the thing minimum. And if you can't make your own bask, friend-brought is fine (= tell your friends!).

[westiec]

5% is a long time for some things and the idea of actually celebrating my efforts for that long is kinda blowing my mind. hm.

[evolutionsbedingt]

@bbcphile From a basking professional:

accomplish the task (or a milestone within)

say that out loud

text a friend (or three) about it

exhale deeply and consciously let go of the tension

move elsewhere (sat at your desk? go and sit on the couch. finished in the kitchen? go to any other room. not yet up for moving? change the background music/noise you had on.)

bathroom break?

grab a snack?

Look at your accomplished task from a distance and feel smug about it

no seriously, if you don't feel like you're embodying the smug cat meme try getting a little more physical or temporal distance, or a friend-shaped reality check, and then look at it again

do One (1) small task your brain kept pestering you about while you were Accomplishing The Thing

also feel smug about that because you totally beat your brain about letting you do The Thing first and now you've completed two (2!!) tasks

depending on how long Accomplishing The Thing took you may now move on to your next Thing OR continue basking to reach the 5% of time invested:

find a comfortable place to be and do a spoon-refilling activity: take a nap, scroll tumblr, read fanfic, write fanfic, gush about blorbos, stare out of the open window with the cool evening breeze brushing over your skin as gentle as a loving caress and drink the Tasty Beverage of your choice (specific example is specific, but iykyk), etc pp

remember you accomplished The Thing and are now Basking.

you are but a large predator enjoying the fruits of its labour and recharging after the successful hunt, no need to go charging off after the next prey just yet

all that Fun Stuff you thought you'd rather be doing while you were busy with The Thing? Do it now.

(well, maybe not all at once, we're still basking in our accomplishment after all and moving erratically would defeat the purpose)

perceive The Accomplished Thing in passing and think 'ha, I did it, I got you, I won!' I'll leave it up to you whether you'll use your villain or your hero voice

repeat until the next Thing is due

integrate normal, life preserving measures such as making food or sleeping as needed

[kiragecko]

[Image shows the tags,

#mental health #ooh interesting # ... how does it work? #I feel like I need a bulleted list on How To Bask In Your Accomplishments

End ID.]

[whyenn-reader]

Not to go "if you have ADHD just go for a run" or anything, but I am so serious if you have ADHD you should regularly go outside, no headphones no phone no nothing and just stand and observe for a while until you've had enough. Not until you get bored, until you've had enough. Drink your coffee without watching tiktok. Have a bath without music. Turn down the volume in your headphones. I cannot overstate how much learning to be bored is cruicial with ADHD. Life is not just about pleasure, no matter what your dysregulated dopamine system thinks, and when you teach your brain to be okay with being bored, then boring tasks stop feeling like torture. By letting yourself be bored you are yoinking your system out of the high/low binary and allow for the highs to feel like actual highs and not just anything that isn't low. I am so serious go literally touch grass. Listen to the sounds in your flat. Stimulate your body the way it was designed. It lowers anxiety and makes you feel like you're real and best of all it's completely free

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I really wish more ADHD mental health care told you WHY things like this matter to our quality of life.

The Hyperactivity in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is NOT about being physically hyperactive, it's about having a "hyperactive central nervous system" because it's a form of inheritable dysautonomia. The problem with disautonomia, especially the ADHD kind, is that it makes boredom flag to your nervous system as a THREAT, triggering hyperactive and maladaptive central nervous system processes like fight or flight.

But dysautonomia kills you that way. Literally, part of the reason our average life spand increase on stimulents is that it helps manage risk-taking impulsivity that can get us killed by accident, but the other part is that stimulents can regulate a hyperactive CNS such that it is functionally (while impacted by the stimulent) NOT dysregulated anymore. And PHYSIOLOGICALLY that is essential because the physical outcomes of dysautonomia can reduce your life span by YEARS if not decades through self-perpetuating hypervigelence, endocrine disruption, and adrenal fatigue.

So when the ADHD brain goes stimulation-seeking and a doctor tells you to practice mindfulness, it feels like being told "hey go stand in a functioning boiler until you can stop thinking" rather than WHAT IT IS which is the process of re-teaching your body what is and isn't safe.

Standing outside making mindful, non-interpretive/moralized observation of the world helps your brain and body re-acclimate to the idea that absence of that frantic "busy" feeling isn't a threat or a risk to your safety, and gradually reduces the level of distress that just hanging out somewhere triggers for you.

Learning WHY this stuff was being suggested and understanding what it was actually supposed to do went a long way towards changing my relationship with my ADHD. I am FAR more functional now, far less prone to shame spirals and rejection sensitivity, hell, I can **sit physically still for near on an hour at a time** now without feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin.

So yeah. Go outside. Let the world narrow around you and take deep breaths until it stops feeling claustrophobic or like you need to climb walls. Learn how to let little sensations become big ones like the way the heat of the sun on your skin starts as a gentle warming and be omes a unique collection of sensory moments depending on how it lands on you. Listen for sounds under sounds and let them fade in and out as you move your focus from one sound to the next. Enjoy. Move on. Rinse and repeat.

When you no longer feel like the world is actively killing you, it's a lot easier to navigate it.

[thoughtportal]

cleaning along desire paths

[lady-griffin]

Fantastic advice!! And something I’ve realized I’ve been doing for myself these last 6-7 years, even though I never had a name for it.

Seriously, this is such a great way to go about organizing your home.

I really can’t express how much easier your life can be when you accept that there’s no objectively right way to do this kind of stuff, especially when you let go of the idea that it’s a moral failure when you can’t do something the “correct way” nor is it evidence of you being lazy.

Working with (leaning into) your natural limits and instincts can do wonders for you in your day-to-day life.

[nightmare-from-heaven]

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.

[figofswords]

Stuck.

(it’s 2am, and according to your therapist, you have “a whopping case of ADHD”

[melancholycatastrophe]

[whowhatme-deactivated20231104]

This.

[kerink]

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

[themythicalcodfish]

OP this is EXCELLENT

[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.

[inkskinned]

executive dysfunction is legitimately physically uncomfortable. i’ll be trapped between two things, weirdly caught on how-much-time-it-might-take-me. i take hours worried im going to take hours doing things. i’ll sit on the floor for the entire day, caught up in the middle of not-doing the chores i actually do want to be doing.

& the amount of mental energy that goes into it. & the legitimate amount of anger and discomfort and self-hate. is not “being lazy”.  it’d be a lot less work if i didn’t have to fight myself to just get up and do it. 

i just need you to understand it’s not effortless. it’s never effortless. it’s not “okay let me just get up and finally start doing this.” it’s more like. i am slamming my foot on the pedal but the car is in neutral and nothing is moving. it’s more like shouting instructions into a dying telephone. it’s more like being trapped in a small electric box, and someone who hates me is administering shocks. 

im trying. im trying. please help me get up.

[cockroachmotherfucker10]

Do it halfway. Take one piece of trash out of your room, throw one dirty shirt into your hamper. Go to one class and miss a different one. Start a drawing without pressure to finish it. Give yourself space to Be without the expectation to Become, and do small things to make the Being livable.

[huffylemon]

[serial-unaliver-deactivated2024]

I don't think people in the notes understand what this tweet is saying. It's not saying it's impossible to be born with a mental health issue, but that the issue isn't set in stone. Bipolar disorder can be trauma induced. Schizophrenic people in less individualistic, more accepting societies hear kinder voices. These are actual things you can look up.

I thought for the longest time I would feel nothing but suffering because of the dominant narrative surrounding mental illness. My parents were literally told by a psychologist I am "a severe case" and have no future. But guess what? When I got away from my abusive parent, it was incredible how much became more manageable than before. I'll never be "normal" or even be able to live alone, but I feel better than before. And I need everyone to know there's hope for you when you never expect it, even if you were in part "born like that".

[warewolfish]

[ID: a tweet from user The_Wub_ that reads, “Sorry that I implied mental illness is often contingent upon class relations and cultural values of dominant modes of production. You're right. It's much more polite to insist its a metaphysical plague that is usually terminal & incurable & never anyone's fault”. end ID.]

[allgremlinyaps]

executive dysfunction is like. go piss girl. go piss girl. go piss. go piss girl. girl get up and go piss. you have to go piss girl. go pi

[thoughtstherapy]

Images that you would probably not see again @thoughtstherapy

[generaln0m]

ADHD pro tip: Use psychological warfare on yourself.

For example, in order to do long tasks, like folding laundry, I put on the Mario Hat:

The main feature of the Mario hat is that my headset does not fit over it, so when The Bees™ try to put me back in front of the screen, the headset issue forces me to remember why I put the Mario hat on, and back to the task I go

As a bonus, the Mario hat is also a very clear indicator to my housemates that business is getting done, and they have learned not to distract me when I'm wearing the "goofy-ass cosplay hat"

It's not stupid if it works.

[roach-works]

when i was in like eleventh grade i noticed i had gotten too gunshy about saying things and talking to people because i was scared that they would view me with contempt. i decided that to fix this i would wear a very stupid hat at all times, so that when i would think 'i can't say that, it sounds stupid' i would realize 'well, i already look stupid, so nothing is stopping me.'

i wore this for like a year and a half during a very formative age and it worked perfectly. mean kids would be like 'do you think that hat actually makes you cool' and i would go 'no but it does give me unearned confidence' and i was right. it worked great. i completely stopped second-guessing whether or not what i had to say was stupid or embarrassing because no one could embarrass me more than i had already embarrassed myself. i had a great time, shared a million stupid opinions, and made lots of friends who forgave me my hat.

i do not recommend this method to anyone else.

[ace-and-ranty]

I gotta say, one of the greatest achievements of my 20s was that I learned (mostly) to differentiate between:

"I truly do not want to go" and

"I'm just feeling the Demand Avoidance, and I will like it once I get there."

[ace-and-ranty]

Well, goodness, this one resonated much more than I was expecting. I mean, I get it. My mind was also blown wide open when I found out "demand avoidance" was a thing that existed, and that I'm not the only weirdo in the world who suddenly wishes it wasn't her birthday after anxiously waiting for her birthday for days.

Loads of people in the tags are asking how I do it? I feel this won't be groundbreaking advice, but here is what I have learned:

Previous experience. Really no way around it. Now that I hit thirty, I feel like I have done enough things to know, intellectually, from experience, what will feel nice if I overcome the avoidance, and what won't. For example, every time I go to the beach, I wake up early and would rather eat a tire than get off the bed. But I remember that every time I got up and went to the beach, I was glad I did it. So I just get up, feeling like shit, and get ready, feeling like shit, and I get to the beach and magic!! I feel great, I love the beach!! Sometimes you just gotta do it scared feeling kinda like shit.

Am I avoiding the thing or getting to the thing? I have a lot of demand avoidance around just, y'know, getting up, getting ready and going out the door. Universal human experience. If I notice that doing the actual thing (Swim in the pool!) sounds nice, but I'm avoiding having to rally myself to go do that (Fetch swimsuit! Sunscreen! Towel!), then I know it's demand avoidance and I should just fucking go.

Is the thing making me feel excited at all or just anxious? I have had previous occasions when I did the opposite; I convinced myself it was just demand avoidance when I really just. Hated the thing. And wanted to stop. If you feel a mix of excitement and dread, or excitement and anxiety, that might be demand avoidance. But if thinking of doing the thing just makes you feel actively anxious, then yeah. You don't want to do the thing.

Do the thing a little bit. Used often with dishes. I've seen this advice float around Tumblr a lot and it's correct. Commit to doing just a bit of the thing; a little bit of the thing; the smallest bit of the thing you can do. Getting started will make it clear right away if you don't want to do it (and in that case, you have permission to stop), or if you just having trouble getting started.

[lilcowgirl7-deactivated20210223]

I needed this drag. Let’s change guys and not look back

[user87262893]

working out your brain is a must!!

• hydrate it by drinking lots of water

• eat dark chocolate and blueberries and walnuts and salmon and other foods high in antioxidants!!

• play little brain games on your phone; I like wordconenct! anything that makes you think!

• read books. It’s simple but necessary. Even better - join a book club, or read with a friend, so you can have discussions after. This will improve your reading comprehension.

• do puzzles - it doesnt have to be sudoku, I love playing Beat Saber on the Oculus Rift because it makes my brain have to match colorful patterns to physical movements very quickly!

• learn a new dance - even a tik tok trendy dance. Learning new dance moves are proven to strengthen synapses!!

• go bird watching, or foraging, or anything outdoors that requires you to explore pattern recognition and visual searching

• watch a movie with the intent of analysis - this is best done with a cinephile friend!! talk about tropes and symbolism and character growth

• cross stitch, or sew, or do anything that requires matching nimble hand movements to patterns

• play or learn an instrument!

• develop a consistent sleep schedule (or as close to consistent as you can get!)

• when eating, try to identify the ingredients and flavors you’re perceiving!

I hope this helps :)

[moonlightwaterhealing]

I like how this went from me feeling like “hm why is this attacking me 🤨” at first, but feeling grateful seeing an added guide on a genuine expansion on a “ how to” work out the brain. This genuinely helps a bunch. People find solace in doing activities that get them through life by doing said activities of phone/tv or if that’s all they’ve ever known in their life to get them through things + etc tho. However, this was very impt to point out. Slowly beginning incorporating things to work the brain in ones own time.

[vandijkwrites]

Please do things to strengthen your attention span. It stresses me out so much when people just accept their small attention spans and cater to them without any acknowledgment that they are making it worse by doing that.

There is a reason attention spans are worse now and it didn’t just happen by chance. Media and the internet designed it that way and we went with it because it was easier.

Some of us with ADHD and brain fog need to meet ourselves where we’re at and lengthen our exercise span by watching a two minute video instead of a one minute video. Some of us need to sit down and read a novel with our phones turned off.

Wherever you’re at, just realize that not doing things that feel hard will keep making your attention span worse.

[brytning]