Neurotale

The adventures of a pansexual, neurodivergent-as-fuck grad student.

[lovely-english-rose]

what a week huh?

[neurotale]

I can't stop watching this over and over and over.

[neurotale]

Click here to support Help Exploited "Doctors" Guest Marisha Dotson organized by Christine Noel

On September 19, 2017, "The Doctors" television show aired a segment featuring Marisha Dotson, a stage IV squamous cell carcinoma (skin canc

What happened to Marisha is just appalling. Please spread the word and donate if you're able.

[neurotale]

me, an adhd: *barely sleeps, experiences prolonged major depressive episode, suffers autistic burnout, and loses most of general ability to function*

also me: *somehow has finished a draft for a professor to review*

professor: there are so many problems with this.

me: *awaits RSD*

me: ...hello?

brain: *deafening silence*

me:

[neurotale]

ADHD so bad that you just sit there scrolling through your phone apps for almost an hour because you need stimulation but for some reason none of them appeal to you. It's 1 AM and I can't even get up the energy to turn off the phone and go to sleep.

[neurotale]

People are always focused on if they're a morning person or a night owl. But there's another type. And it's not afternoon person. Hello, I am a not-awake person. My favorite time of day is when I'm asleep.

[abcsofadhd]

The sheer, all consuming emptiness of ADHD

Aweful thing about adhd is the sheer emptiness when you havent done anything for a while that gets the dopamine flowing. Its not numbness like depression, it’s pure emptiness.

From my experience, it seems to be more common in people with more inattentive symptoms and the more severe the symptoms, the more empty you feel.

The emptiness is probably the worst things I’ve ever felt; at my worst I have found myself wishing I was heartbroken or that my depression was back, just so the sheer emptiness would go away.

Its awful, awful, awful, awful, awful.

[abcsofadhd]

I haven’t tasted the emptiness in a while. I’ve said RSD is the worst part of ADHD but even blinding emotional pain is easier than the sheer emptiness. I have poked holes at healing emotional scars just to rid myself of the emptiness. 

I’m usually quite optimistic so you can see from my words how much I hate it. My suicidal idealization stemmed from this feeling when I was a teen. 

If you feel this way, get help immediately. I cannot stress this enough.

[buggybrains]

Understimulation and its effects on someone, especially with ADHD, are never talked about enough. If you do not have adequate stimulation that your brain needs, it will naturally end up attacking itself, and this process happens much more rapidly and severely in people with ADHD. It’s not something I always recognized either, since in some cases instead of feeling empty, there are times your brain will completely overthink itself in an attempt to fill in the empty space. Its one reason why I found out I feel more awful past midnight: no one else was awake then and I wasn’t recieving social stimulation.

This is also why maladaptive daydreaming is so incredibly common with people with ADHD. Its basically a no-effort, instant-feedback system to cope with inadequate stimulation and meet these needs they couldn’t get otherwise, even though its far from an ideal method.

[13faeinapenguinsuit]

This is so important. Chronic understimulation can be exceptionally dangerous. Learn the red flags. Learn the little things that help in the short term. And if you don’t have a plan for the long term, I my personal recommendation is a therapist specializing in ADHD.

I know that isn’t possible for everyone - that’s okay. There are many of us out there that are willing to share the things that we have learned that work for us (or don’t).

Ask. Most of us will at least share our experiences.

[autisticeducator]

I’m kinda at that point right now of chronic under stimulation with acute sensory and perception overloading (Autism and ADHD wreck more havoc together).

[neurotale]

When my brain is understimulated during the day (say in a boring meeting or while reading a dull paper), it literally tries to shut down and I have to use all my energy just to keep my eyes open. At night, it has the opposite response, where I can't sleep and end up bingeing on something (usually food or tv). Even with the bingeing though, the void is never filled. It's like I'm starving in a world where food doesn't exist. This has wrecked havoc on my productivity, energy reserves, and sanity. I literally feel like an empty shell of a human on an almost daily basis. I have all sorts of maladaptive coping mechanisms including excessive daydreaming and self harm. And yet for most of my life, people have talked about ADHD like it's a mild inconvenience. I wish I could just put them in my mind and let them experience what I go through every day. Then maybe they'd shut up about "needing adderall to cram for their big test tomorrow."

[neurotale]

me, an ADHD: can you read through this paper i wrote? i need some advice on how to improve it.

friend: this is pretty good but would be better if you did _____.

my brain, trying to hold back the RSD:

[luna-and-mars]

Executive dysfunction gothic

- You have to shower. You cannot shower. You are standing right in front of the shower. You want to shower. You cannot shower.

- The meeting begins. “Did everyone see the email?” There is a chorus of nodding heads. You nod, too. You think you may possibly have checked an email account before, on one single occasion, at some unknown time, probably in a past life.

- You are hungry. You have been hungry for three days now. The hunger has not spontaneously resolved itself. How inconvenient, you think. How rude.

- You depend on your planner/calendar. You loathe your planner/calendar. You can’t function without it. You live in constant fear of it. It’s an unhealthy relationship. You think you both should start seeing other people.

- There is a pile on your floor. It is a treasure trove, the Room of Requirement. It has everything. You look for something specific. It has nothing. There was never any pile.

- There’s been a change of plans, they say. You don’t understand. They repeat: “there’s been a change of plans.” You don’t understand. The mere suggestion causes a buzzing in your head that drowns out everything else. You don’t understand.

- You’re in class and you don’t understand the lecture. You look back at your past notes. You look at a calendar. You have not been to class in two weeks. You have no memory of this supposed time. Where did it go? Why did it leave?

- “Organizational tips for success: Keep a planner! Write it down! Stick to a schedule! Make a list!” You are torn between deranged laughter and ugly crying. You choose both.

[jumpingjacktrash]

this is so true it’s almost not funny. hysterical gigglesob combo is go.

[neurotale]

coworker: it's only you and one other person switching who does this task every week. This should be really easy for you to remember.

me, an ADHD: *almost never knows what day of the week it is unless i look at a calendar and even sometimes forgets my own age* remember? that's a thing people can just...do?

[inkskinned]

idk if it’s just how my very silly brain operates but does anybody else get like. a weird second wave of procrastination right before you finish something. like you already did 70-90% of the work, it realistically won’t take you that long to be done, but for some reason. u just can’t. like. time’s up on executive function. like. oh sorry did you want to not be worried about this? bc im going to make u have to be worried about this. thanks! 

[aprillikesthings]

Literally this is on the most commonly-used evaluation form for adult ADHD

It’s the first item on the damn list! 

(1. How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the challenging parts have been done?)

[adhd-informative]

And it’s so hard to go back to the task at that point because I think of it as basically done so it’s time to move on.

I know that it’s not true and I want to finish but I can’t make myself.

[neurotale]

me: *just doing my thing*

adhd hell brain: BORED! NEED STIMULATION NOW!

me: okay, here. *watches videos and googles random shit for five straight hours*

daily dose of autism: TOO MUCH STIMULATION! SHUTTING DOWN!

me: *unable to function properly for a week*

depression buried in the back of my mind:

[addminds]

me: im a pretty private person, i dont really enjoy trusting people too quickly because it makes me anxious

adhd: infodump to the bus driver about your family’s history of mental illness and how it affected you as a person

[neurotale]

Literally me.

[rowdy-red-riot]

my mum sent me this vid which demonstrates how to use a (usb) charger when ur power goes out, using a car usb plugin, charging cable,a pen spring, and a 9V battery

hopefully someone out there finds this useful

[goopy-amethyst-deactivated20250]

Bitch is livin in 2050

[neurotale]

When one of the researchers on a panel casually mentions they've been funded by Autism Speaks.

[neurotale]

When you finally learn to recognize the "sarcasm" vocal inflection consistently but find out that most people think it's optional and prefer to just use their normal tone.

[the-real-numbers-deactivated202]

Fuck, my sleep schedule does naturally fall into the 4am-12 pattern, doesn’t it

What fucking else about ADD/ADHD don’t I know?

[ms-demeanor]

Do you sit weird in chairs? Apparently that’s one.

Does criticism really REALLY really upset you, to the point that you get upset and consider walking away from whatever the thing you were criticized for was?

Is your sense of time utterly fucked?

[waitingforgalois]

Oh fuck. I was recently diagnosed but all of these things have been true my whole life lol

[ms-demeanor]

Imagine my surprise when I had this plus all the standard symptoms and got diagnosed at 31! *Fingerguns*

More Adult ADHD symptoms that people don’t know:

“Hyperactivity” can include chattiness, or an obsessive focus on one topic that you’ll happily go on about for hours in a conversation with *anyone* at the slightest provocation (last week someone brought up pockets in women’s clothing near the end of a small-group workout session and I may have spent the rest of the session giving an impromptu lecture about pockets while doing hammer curls)

Zoning out and staring off into space because you’re thinking really hard about something and then not noticing that people are talking to you

Hyperfocus is a symptom of ADHD. There’s this pervasive myth that folks with ADHD can’t pay attention but sometimes the problem is you can’t leave something alone.

Random impulsive shopping sprees that leave you wracked with guilt can be part of ADHD

Interrupting or talking over other people

P R O C R A S T I N A T I O N (because you can’t feel bad about failing a project that never gets started)

Worrying that you’re going to get fired every time your boss wants to speak to you privately (this is a sign of rejection sensitive dysphoria and emotional hyperarousal)

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got the attention to look up for now so ttyl, if you think you may have ADHD check out some of the blogs dedicated to it, read up on symptoms, and talk to your doctor, bye.

[ms-demeanor]

Everybody who thinks they might have ADHD go read about dyspraxia holy fuck.

Super common symptom: Left/right confusion.

Everybody raise your hand if you developed a mnemonic as a kid where you flexed your right arm to remember which was right and which was left and kept that into adulthood because I’ve now spoken to three people who have a half-second “right-flex-okay-it’s-this-one” “left-flex-okay-it’s-the-other-one” process for figuring out which is right and which is left.

[the-real-numbers-deactivated202]

Specifically, raise your left hand :p

[iaaathereforiam-deactivated2019]

Almost all of this fits me but also I read most of these as autistic and not ADHD. Can someone explain how these display differently?

[ms-demeanor]

I’m not gonna lie here, I don’t honestly know that there is that much of a difference. I’ve had lots of people suggest that I might be autistic and unaware of it, and overstimulation and processing issues and meltdowns can also be observed in ADHD adults even though they frequently go in the “autistic” column.

FWIW I’m enby and fall heavily into the “looks like a woman” category and had trouble getting diagnosed even with ADHD. I’ve discussed autism with my doctors in the past because I’ve had so many people go “uh, hey, you might want to ask” and they’ve consistently done the “no, you’re too good at recognizing social cues and maintaining eye contact” thing (am I good at these things because I’m good at them or am I good at these things because I’ve learned to do them as a survival skill after years of bullying because I was the weird kid who couldn’t act right? It’s hard to tell). I’ve heard a lot of people discussing the fact that adult women have trouble getting diagnosed, especially if they’ve been masking a long time.

Apparently there’s at least something of a difference in regard to desire for order and repetition and verbosity as children. I don’t know how much of a difference there is for adults.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

As an adult I can’t even get diagnosed for ADD/ADHD because if I ever mention it my doctors always ask the leading question “do you know how they treat that?” which feels like this dumb test like if I answer with yeah I know what they do they’ll immediately assume I’m there for the drugs, which like yeah technically I am, but not for THAT reason. If the shit helps me why wouldn’t I want to take it?

It feels very catch-22. If I know anything about ADD and can accurately describe my symptoms as ADD then they just think I’m reading from a premade list of symptoms I read online, but like looking online is how I IDed my symptoms so…I don’t get it.

[reinedescruelles]

I am a 23 year old female and was diagnosed (at 21, took a lot of self advocacy bc by family didnt believe in adhd) and medicated for ADHD by a professional. I can confirm there’s a huge overlap between symptoms of adhd and autism and that’s because they’re both neurodevelopmental disorders and thus have similar effects going on regarding brain chemistry. However, they are distinct diagnoses evem though they affect some of the same parts of the brain and have similar symptoms (also, similar symptoms appear for different reasons in the disorders, so sometimes they may present similarly but be caused by different issues). @ms-demeanor @skinnersboxy

[neurotale]

As someone who is diagnosed with both ADHD and autism, it can honestly be hard to tell some of the symptoms apart, as they overlap quite a bit. Additionally, their tendency to present comorbidly implies there may be some connection between them. In my case, for convenience mostly, I see the autism as mainly affecting my social abilities and sensitivity to various sensations and the ADHD, my impulse control and ability to perform tasks. However, especially with things like RSD, hyperfocus/special interests, and infodumping, it can be difficult to tell where they are coming from. Since the diagnosis of each is based almost exclusively on symptoms, thinking of them as inherently separate (at least in my case) is probably a massive oversimpification.

[neurotale]

I never thought I would find the perfect description of my life summed up in homework feedback.