PSA about ADHD
✦ADHD is not a personality quirk
- some things that tag along with ADHD are:
~sensory processing disorder
~executive dysfunction
~poor fine motor skills
~sensory overloads (that lead to meltdowns)
~sensory seeking (self stimming)
~hyperfixations
~moderate to severe memory problems
~Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria- is an extreme emotional sensitivity and emotional pain triggered by the perception that one is being rejected, teased, or criticized. The emotional response is complete with suicidal ideation and people suffering from RSD often get misdiagnosed with serious personality disorders. RSD is only seen in people with ADHD and the emotional sensitivity/reaction is much more severe than that of a neurotypical person.
✦Some other “fun” ADHD things!
~inability to regulate emotions
~no concept of time
~noticeable public stimming (resulting in stares from neurotypicals)
~no impulse control
~insomnia
~listen but cannot absorb what is being said
~no volume control
~increased inability to focus when emotional
~difficulty stopping a task and transitioning to the next
~social anxiety
~higher levels on generalized anxiety
~extremely forgetful
~”all or nothing” mentality
@ neurotypicals- some things to be aware of:
- you cannot hyperfixate. only people who are neurodivergent can hyperfixate. please don’t use that word when describing your latest obsession :-)
- please don’t stare at neurodivergent people who are stimming in public
- be respectful of those who actually need fidget toys so they can subtly stim in public
- if we forget something you tell us it is not because we don’t care, we just have a million other thoughts racing through our mind and no way to filter through them.
- please be gentle with us. no don’t tip toe around us and treat us like we aren’t human, but be aware that even offhand comments can trigger RSD. no we aren’t being too sensitive, our brains are wired differently than yours.
The hyperfixation one is really important!!!!!!!! I see lots of nt ppl going around saying that they have a “hyperfixation” - but a neurotypical brain can’t actually hyperfixate.
It’s not just “oh this new thing is great and i love it!”, it’s “this new thing is taking up all my time, i’m constantly thinking about the new thing and I just spent 2 hours making a fan edit for the new thing instead of doing homework”
^^^^ this this this
I don’t know if I can express how mentally damaging and emotionally exhausting and, honestly, sometimes life ruining hyperfixation can be sometimes when people think it’s like a “cute, quirky, obsession.” It’s so much more than that.
Hyperfixation is not “oh this thing is so cool and fun, I bought some merch for it and now I want to tell everyone about it.” It’s:
“This is the only thing I am physically capable of talking about, everything I talk about relates back to this thing, this is the only thing I can think about, I stay up until 3 AM even though I know I need to wake up at 6 AM for work tomorrow because my brain is thinking about this thing and won’t quiet down enough to sleep. I’m so busy looking for more content on this thing that I can’t sleep. When I do finally fall asleep my dreams are filled with this thing. This thing is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about at night.”
“Everything I see and hear around me in every day life - people, songs, movies, objects - reminds me of this thing. I’m panicking because I have a paper due in 4 hours that I can’t finish because all my brain processing power is taken up by thinking about this thing and no matter what I do I can’t get my brain to switch from this thing to the paper topic long enough to write this paper. Music and white noise is too much to handle on top of it, quiet makes it worse, if I try to think about literally anything else my brain shuts down until I pick the thing back up again.”
“I’m going to cry because everyone is tired of me talking about this thing and I can feel their irritation but my entire life has been taken over by this thing, I live and breathe this thing, this thing is the only thing I care about even if that means I haven’t done my homework in 3 days, I haven’t done the laundry in a week and oh shit, I’m out of clean underwear, I ran out of clean dishes yesterday, I haven’t eaten in 14 hours — all because I’m spending time thinking about/engaging with this thing.”
And then one day you wake up and suddenly you just… don’t care anymore. You try to engage with the thing like you did before but now your brain is rejecting it. Your brain shuts down if you try to think about this thing. You now feel absolutely nothing in the face of this thing. This thing cannot hold your attention for more than 3 seconds. Two days later it’s like this thing never even existed.
But… you have found a new thing.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
I’ve never heard someone put hyperfixation into words so well. The worst is when you were so hyper fixated that you made it a part of your work or school work (like doing your class presentation on the topic) but you wake up and don’t care anymore. And then it’s torture. You have to slog through this thing that used to be the reason you’re alive.
