Memoirs of the spectrum

Just a blog to post my personal autistic experiences. 18+ Genderfluid transmasc he/they

[justautisticthings]

I'm

So tired

[justautisticthings]

I just want to exist without someone complaining

[adhdcognizant-deactivated202110]

🙂🙃

[stinkyhat-deactivated20231213]

THERES ALWAYS SOME KIND OF FUCKING NOISE

[lilacs-world]

If anyone ever tells me again that I'm not concentrating hard enough or I'm not focusing hard enough on doing my tasks or work or whatever, here watch this. No brain is the same and our ADHD brain looks different when focusing/concentrating!!!

©chalenejohnson on tiktok

[nikkitana]

Transcript

Chalene: We have very different brains.

Bret: Yes, we do. Very different.

Chalene: And we're gonna show you.

This is a SPECT, S-P-E-C-T of my husband's brain. This is his brain during focus of a--at a task that takes concentration. This is showing blood flow to the different areas of his brain when he has to focus and concentrate.

And this...is mine.

When I have to focus and concentrate on something I find boring, my brain literally goes to sleep.

Okay, when I was having that test, I knew I was being tested. So I was concentrating as hard as I possibly could. I was trying to focus, and that's what happens in the brain of someone with ADHD.

So when we say our brains work differently, we literally...

(quieter) What was I talking about?

[thescarletlibrarian]

Neurological condition is neurological, yo.

[fleetnaturals-deactivated202110]

sign up for the gold package of ADHD today and experience the following moods:

The Loop - opening and closing the same three websites in succession for 15 minutes at a time before realizing that there’s not going to be anything new or worth doing on those websites (my three are Tumblr, Youtube and Wikipedia)

The Ack - seeing you have a new message and, though you have no evidence that it’s anything even remotely noteworthy let alone negative, feel intense dread and procrastinate looking at the message for 30 minutes/5 hours/a week

The Shimmy - changing sitting/laying positions every 5 minutes because god dammit i’m not going to be able to focus on whatever task i need to do if I feel any unwelcome physical sensation

The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle - making a hot beverage for yourself and then putting it down slightly out of reach and then not drinking it until 45 minutes later when it has already gone cold

The Bellwether - scrolling on Tumblr and getting the urge to google something/look up something on Wikipedia, but you keep scrolling and forget what you wanted to look up so you frantically scroll back to the thing that prompted you to think about looking the other (un)related thing up in the first place

The Bop - earnestly insisting that you’re not anxious because the other person sees your leg bouncing and thinks that you’re about to go postal

The Poison Dart - hearing someone say something problematic out loud and freezing because, while you want to correct them gently, you also feel intense dread and RSD that if you even so much as suggest dissent the person will immediately and commensurately stab you to death or snap their fingers and open a trapdoor to hell beneath you

The Ghost Breath - realizing you haven’t texted your friend back/at all/in 3 weeks and thinking “Hmmm, I need to do that” and then you don’t do it and much more time passes by 

The Stim Package - eating an entire family-sized bag of chips in one sitting because having something to chew on helped you concentrate, at least a little

The Bullfrog - going to get something that you don’t use often but you know exactly where it is and then it’s not there and you just keep going back to that spot 5 more times before realizing you lost it or it’s somewhere else completely different (like, not even in the same building)

The Morning Mist - regularly forgetting what recent life events actually happened and which ones were from extremely vivid dreams

The Seesaw Rivet - feeling like a wounded child who is about to get in trouble during every interaction you have even as you are entering your mid-to-late-20s and genuinely wondering when that pattern is ever going to stop if ever

The Pull-Apart Muffin - having ADHD and about 3 other diagnoses and wondering what is even what anymore

[kazo0-boy]

[candydancey]

I relate to all of these… i may just have to go see a doctor

[lets-do-get-help-deactivated202]

This post reached out of my phone and slapped me across the face 13 times

[umbrellanumber5-deactivated2021]

.

.

This.

This is why people who stay in my life are neurodiverse like me!

[nottoolateforthegame]

Huh

[thisisnotjuli]

this!! I swear I lost like all my friendships bc of this, like I had a group of friends in hs that one day I realized "huh I haven't talked to this people in a while" and popped in to say hi and they were all awkward?? because they hadn't seen me in a while?? and that's when I realized that friendship works different for them?? I was like yeah I haven't talked to you in like four months but it's not like I've forgotten about y'all why would anything change, and they were all like we haven't talked to you in four months why are you here again acting like nothing happened? and it was really confusing for me

[mimir-bashir]

YEAH! THAT!

Also I have a thing where I just put the people on pause. If I don’t see them or contact them, my brain kinda put them in stasis. I don’t think about them nor misses them, and I stay on what I last knew about them (how they look, what they study/work). So when we meet again I’m like “wait, you’ve aged?” and I have the same familiarity with them thanI had before.

[gender-snatched]

Anyway all my mutuals I haven't messaged in forever - this is why

[official-lucifers-child]

oh my gods this makes so much sense??? there are people who i haven’t talked to at all for literally over a year and we’ll pick up like nothing happened, but for their people it’s just like...... falling apart but onesided???? i think we’re still on the same level but actually we’re strangers??

[link-the-feral-anon]

Ohhhhhh

[ydhsbhsnf-deactivated20210613]

peak adhd bonding is when the person you're talking to changes the subject but you can determine exactly the train of thought that led them there. neurotypicals could never

[roboco-san]

my personal curse is the knowledge that I function best with rigid structure and strict routine but am almost totally incapable of independently establishing or maintaining that structure and routine

[curlyfried]

Don’t forget this special feature: at the same time hating when people tell you what to do

[pattoncountdown]

Sometimes I have to remember people that don’t have ADHD can’t focus/unfocus their eyes so sometimes I’m just *focus* *unfocus* *focus* *unfocus*

[whatishappeningrightnow-deactiv]

AT LONG LAST I have found another that can do this! I didn't know it was an ADHD thing lol I just thought it was a coincidence

[pattoncountdown]

HDJDJD YEAH IVE SEEN A LOT OF PEOPLE TALK ABOUT IT SO YEAH

[whatishappeningrightnow-deactiv]

Do neurotypicals not do this?!? ghfsghfhsh

[noodles-07]

THAT is NOT a NORMAL PERSON THING????

[spirallingintotheabyss]

^^^

I thought everyone can do this? It's easy, you just *unfocus*

[dysphoricdemonthings]

i just stare at nothing, and dont blink, its hella easy

[pun-ishment888]

Wait thats. A normal thing one can do????

[kawaii-pigeon]

So unrelated note but y'all would be wicked at saying 'i love you' in bird

[roboco-san]

are u a "meticulously organized to stave off your natural chaotic resting state" adhd or a "fuck it I guess I live like this now" adhd

[actualaster]

you know what the w o r s t thing about adhd is? (at least i think this one is the adhd, could be one of the 429432 other things i have)

time is meaningless.

which means if i have one (1) thing that i need to do, my brain has to block the entire day out for it.

which means that even if it’s technically a “day off” if i have one (1) important obligation–even if it’s only gonna take like 2 hours out of hte day–my brain doesn’t count it as a “day off” so i don’t actually get to use it to decompress from everything else

which is how i end up going weeks or months without having a “day off” that my brain will register as such so my stress levels just keep compounding, and my energy levels keep plummeting, and it’s hell on earth is what it is

[dog-teeth]

stimming on T ! autistic/adhd trans people we are the coolest

[justautisticthings]

Things you probably shouldn't say to an autistic person

"Your laugh is annoying"

"Nevermind"

[justautisticthings]

So i have a question, because theres still a whole lot i dont know about autism, even being on the spectrum because i dont know where i can go or who i can talk to about it to get answers. I know its not an illness or a disease, but what can i call it when explaining it to people? A symptom of my brain? I dont wanna call it a condition because that also implies illness.

[tfw-adhd]

As it was requested by quite a few people, I made a Venn Diagram showing the overlapping symptoms of ADHD and PTSD. I really hope this helps!

[crowrelli]

I have this tiktok saved n thought.. Others might like it too..

[noahparaduck]

is there an alternative where you don't have to use alarms though?

[crowrelli]

ive seen people use counting down from a certain number or for a duration of a song on their playlists too!! 

[mindflamer]

[video description: a white person with short light brown hair and some stubble. they are wearing a black shirt and a fiery looking mask around their neck. as they speak, some captions appear on screen reiterating the points they are making.

“ADHD tip! i use this one more than any other one by far. (except, for white board of course)” [smiles and there is a heart emoji on the screen]

“if there’s something you have to do but you’ve avoided starting doing it, think of the smallest amount of time that you know you can force yourself to do, and set a timer for that amount, and do it for that amount of time. and then once the timer’s up, you can stop.”

“now you might be thinking, [higher-pitched voice] hey eric i have ADHD i’m supposed to be wanting to complete stuff and stuff, why would i want to quit in the middle of a task?! well i would say not starting a task at all is a much bigger problem than not completing it. and, once you’ve started it it’s much easier to keep going.”

“for example, i needed to clean my kitchen yesterday, and i could not get myself to start doing it. but i thought, i can definitely clean my kitchen for three minutes. so i started a timer for three minutes and started doing the stuff. and when the timer was up, i thought well, i... i can do another three minutes. and so i did. and then when that was up, i was like, goin’. and if you stop after the initial timer goes off, you succeeded in your goal of doing the thing for that amount of time!”

[yelling] “use those timers!!!”

[username @heygude appears on screen.]

/end video description]