Embpty

[the-font-bandit]

One of the most frustrating things about being ADHD is the way hyperfixations and skill levels work.

So I, an ADHD person, will get obsessed with A Thing. I will research, I will practice. I'll check out library books, watch YouTube videos, seek out podcasts, all to learn everything I can about The Thing.

Thiat Thing is often a skill or hobby. Painting, writing, candlemaking, baking, mixology, tea blending.

But the thing with ADHD is that you'll be obsessed with it only to a certain skill level. Something where all the mystery is gone. It's not as fun once the learning part is over and it's just boring practice to get better.

Then abruptly, you'll lose interest and move to another fixation.

That skill level you've earned may be higher than your average person with a passing interest. But it's also lower than someone who specializes in said thing, who has put in those hard hours of practice and work.

So you start just forming this miscellaneous collection of things that you're good enough at to earn some praise, but still leave you feeling like you're just never *quite* good enough at anything because you can't just choose anything.

And you want to pick a Thing. To find Your Thing. The thing that fits, that you can finally excel at. But you just can't seem to.

[anarchistfrogposting]

“Ah sorry I’m just dumb” (having ADHD my whole life has meant that I’ve been criticised heavily for making mistakes that come part and parcel with the condition. Even the people I love most in the world have chastised me for mistakes that I spend much of my life worrying about and trying to avoid. It’s much easier to tell you I’m just a silly guy than explain to you that no matter how much effort, how much thought, how much stress I put into avoiding these same mistakes, I will keep making them over and over again. My brain is structurally built to thwart me throughout it all.)

[yourlocaladhder]

I didn't know that I didn't know.

[theadhdgoblin]

[simplysebby]

I'm so fucking productive. I got so much shit done today.

ⓘ Fact check: This user did the bare minimum for the first time in 3 months.

[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.

[catchymemes]

[internetgreatesthits]

[nyctoheart]

movies where someone hears an important message only once and retains all the details….

girl if that were me, we’d be fucked. I have to reread emails like 4 times.

[nyctoheart]

if it were me having to repeat my dead father’s instructions on destroying the death star:

[cyberphuck]

I was in a college psych class, and the teacher was doing some kind of exercise about memory, patterns, and retention. He began with, “for instance, if I asked you what number the first letter of your name is in the alphabet, you wouldn’t be able to tell me right aw–” “Ten,” I said. “What?” “J. J is ten,” I said again. He stared at me. “I happened to learn it while looking at the alphabet when I was five or six, and it just stayed in my brain,” I told him. Then we did an exercise on retention. “I’m going to tell you a story,” he said, “and then I’m going to send you out of the room for five minutes, and when you come back, you have to repeat as much of the story back to me as possible.” He told me a long and meandering story with no plot or structure, just a random series of events, place names, actions, etc. Then he sent me out of the room. I looked at the wall for a while. He called me back in five minutes later, stood me up in front of the class, and asked me to repeat “just as much of the story as you remember.” Apparently while I’d been gone he’d been telling the class about how eyewitness accounts aren’t reliable because people don’t remember things well after a certain period of time. So I told his story back to him– not verbatim, but certain phrases were exact– and watched the consternation in his face as I accidentally blew up his (valid! and extensively studied!) lesson about how bad people’s retention is. “It’s like a song,” I tried to explain to him, and the class. “Or a poem. Every part of the story has a little tag to remember it. I looked at the chalkboard while you were saying this part. My leg itched while you were saying that part. A chair squeaked during the next part. Then I just have to come back and go over all the sensations that I had while you were” “Sit down,” he said. I sat. Turns out I’m Autisms Georg adn should not have been counted

[underthehedge]

ADHD version: A friend asked, on a field trip, why I knew the scientific name for Caltha palustris, “Well, we did that [one week long] field ID course [three years previously] and we saw it in one of the bogs”.

This, I was informed, is very much not a normal reason to remember the scientific name of a plant for the rest of your life.

It took me five whole years to learn when my partner’s birthday is.

[firebirdeternal]

I can remember specific details about games I played over two decades ago that I have not played since.

I once forgot it was my birthday. On my birthday. And when my sister (Who lived several hours away) jumped out of hiding and yelled happy birthday, I looked around to see who she was talking to.

[clotpolesonly]

[ikeptupwiththejoneses]

I can remember that a pterodactyl is not a dinosaur, but in fact a pterosaur(a large flying reptile), and that there aren’t any real “water dinosaurs”(if they lived in water full time or like mostly their large marine/aquatic reptiles), and that dinosaurs lived on land(occasionally dipping into the water), all things I learned in elementary school….

….but it took 4 years and a memory trick to remember my husband’s birthday.

[anukfilli]

i was trying to make a meme but i fucked up the audio layering and

[kira-serialfaggot]

Listening to happy music to get through the disassociative episode

[eternal-fractal]

this feels like adhd with depression

[leafwateraddict]

Can confirm this is exactly like adhd with depression

[thegeminisage]

bro im gonna CRY i didnt know this 🥺

[viss-and-pinegar]

[sparkysparklesuphigh]

O so am not just tired

[mothmansboywife]

The only adhd tips that work:

1. Never tell anyone what you're planning to do until you do it (you will get a premature dopamine hit and sense of accomplishment from telling them and lose motivation to actually do it)

2. Never sit down (never sit down)

[mothmansboywife]

3. Be perpetually haunted by "omg you people can't do anything"

[bloodiedpoet]

4. Spite. Spite and rage.

[bludragongal]

There's a cool idea for some OCs in here somewhere...

[scretladyspider]

“If you have time to watch Netflix you have time for a side hustle” my side hustle is relaxing so that my body and brain can heal from by this nose-to-the-grindstone bullshit. I refuse to feel guilty for being a human with the need to relax sometimes. my side hustle is no.

[catchymemes]

[theanythingmachine]

my first favorite hobby is yapping. second is being extremely quiet and not talking ever at all ever.

[the-seelie-court-official]

"that doesn't sound sincere- it sounds rehearsed" is one of the most devastating and fucked-up statements you can make to anyone in the neurodivergent/ADHD/Autistic/Schizophrenic/Disordered Personality sphere. yeah bitch it's rehearsed. because i wanted to get it right when i said it

[sockatoothewafflebird]

i genuinely have never understood how normal people do conversations because what do you mean it all comes up on the spot. what do you mean you don't need to think over every possible thing someone could say and find a response to that??? what do you mean unplanned meetups or convos aren't stressful as FUCK for you????????